Wealth inequality and inter-governorate migration: Evidence from Egypt

Mohamed Arouri and Nguyen Viet Cuong
Additional contact information
Nguyen Viet Cuong: Institute of Theoretical and Applied Research (ITAR), Duy Tan University, Da Nang, Vietnam

Progress in Development Studies, 2020, vol. 20, issue 2, 119-139

Abstract: Migration is one of the key livelihood strategies for households, especially those in low-income and middle-income regions. In this study, we investigate whether the economic level and inequality of wealth can affect inter-governorate migration in Egypt. Using gravity models and data from Population and Housing Censuses of Egypt, we are able to measure the push as well as pull effects of economic and wealth inequality levels on internal migration flows. Although there are a large number of studies on the effect of economic levels on migration, there is little if anything known about the effect of wealth inequality between the origin and destination areas on migration. We measure wealth levels using the household asset index. We find that people tend to move to governorates with high wealth levels as well as high wealth inequality. There is a positive association between wealth inequality and economic growth in Egypt. Governorates with high wealth inequality tend to experience high economic growth and therefore attract more migrants. This study’s findings also suggest that unlike non-work migration, the low wealth level in origin governorates is a push factor for work migration.

Keywords: Household asset inequality; household asset index; migration; gravity model; Egypt (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2020
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

Downloads: (external link)
https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/1464993420910554 (text/html)

Related works:
Working Paper: Wealth inequality and inter-governorate migration: Evidence from Egypt (2020)
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:sae:prodev:v:20:y:2020:i:2:p:119-139

DOI: 10.1177/1464993420910554

Access Statistics for this article

More articles in Progress in Development Studies
Bibliographic data for series maintained by SAGE Publications ().