Rural Out-Migration and Family Life in Cities in Mongolia

There is a growing concern among policy makers and the international development community about the rapid concentration of migrants in the capital city of Ulaanbaatar (UB) and its social, economic, and environmental consequences (UNDP, 2003). These concerns call for a good understanding of the nature of migration in Mongolia and its impacts on the life of migrants. Using the 2007-08 Household Economic and Social Survey of Mongolia, this paper aims to: (a) document the characteristics of recent internal migration in Mongolia; and (b) assess the livelihoods of rural-to-urban migrants in comparison to those staying in rural areas as well as to local urban residents. The analysis in this paper suggests that rural out-migration is negatively correlated with the chance of falling into poverty. For those who did not migrate from rural areas, their poverty incidence was much higher, and their consumption level much lower, than that of rural-to-urban migrants. However, not all urban destinations are equal: there is a large discrepancy in livelihoods between those moving to aimag centers versus those moving the UB. The poverty incidence of rural migrant families moving into aimag centers was 33 percent, whereas 24 percent for those migrant families moving into UB.