Modernization Theory

2.2.1 Modernization Theory

Modernization theory arose out of the desire to understand how less developed traditional societies could develop over time, and how industrialization could be used as the agent of change in these societies (Gelderblom and Kok, 1994). According to modernizationists, urbanization is part of a natural process of transformation from agrarian to industrialized society (Bradshaw and Noonan, 1997). This transformation is envisaged to follow a development path similar to that experienced by developed countries through the introduction of modern methods of production and industrial efficiency (Gugler, 1997;

Sjaastad, 1962). Hence development becomes synonymous with urbanization (Rostow, 1960) as there is no urbanization without development. Consequently, the development paradigm that arose in the 1950s advocated the transformation of the developing world from a rural-based agrarian society to an urban-based industrial one. Development practice arising out of such theorization preoccupied itself with encouraging and facilitating rapid urbanization, with little regard being paid to the eventual economic conditions of the migrants in the city. The assumption that the rural-urban migrant would always be better off in the urban area and the inadequate attention paid to the possibility of the migrant becoming poorer in the city, are the genesis of the lack of attention to urban food insecurity problems. Only a few theorists acknowledged the likelihood of urban poverty, but viewed this only as a necessary initial stage out of which urban wealth would emerge and the poverty immediately disappear.

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A strong body of work (e.g. Brinley, 1974; Lewis, 1954) lent weight to this modernization paradigm by arguing that there was significant unemployment in the countryside where rural workers with marginal productivity of close to zero, could be sent to the modern urban-based industrial sector at zero cost to positively contribute to the overall economic growth while improving their own standards of living. By migrating from regions of low marginal productivity to regions with higher marginal productivity, this labour would thus

‘increases the total output of the society’ (Bradshaw, 1987:225) leading to increased development. Accordingly, migration from rural to urban areas was viewed as a positive feature to be encouraged (Rostow, 1971, 1960). In those decades, the level of urbanization was therefore taken as a proxy for the level of development (Sharma, 2004). In cementing this view, Todaro (1969:139) argued that ‘it is a well-known fact of economic history that material progress usually has been associated with the gradual but continuous transfer of economic agents from rural based traditional agriculture to urban oriented modern industry’. The movement from rural to urban areas was thus seen not only as a spatial movement, but also as structural economic development, with benefits accruing to the migrants in urban areas as well. Within these urban areas, questions of food insecurity were thus not expected to arise as incomes from industrial occupations were presumed to be enough to purchase enough food for the urban populace.

While this theorization may hold true for the European and American experience, where urbanization took place within the context of industrialisation, job creation and increases in rural agricultural productivity (Frayne, 2001:32), the urbanization process in most of the developing world has not followed the same trajectory. In Southern Africa, for example, the urbanization process has often taken place independent from industrialization (Bryceson, 2006; Simon, 1997; Wekwete, 1992). Overall, economic growth for the region has generally declined since the mid-1970’s (Kanji, 1996; Amis, 1990). Only 9 percent of Africa’s labour force was employed in industry in 1999, compared to 18 percent in Asia, which has seen comparable rates of urbanization (World Bank, 2000). To make matters worse, the 22 million new jobs projected to be created by the region’s industries between 1985 and 2020 fall far short of the 380 million necessary to keep unemployment below 10 percent (Falola and Salm, 2004). Furthermore, real wages and per capita incomes have consistently

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declined since the 1970s (Nsiah, 2005; Drimie and Mini, 2003). Compounding the situation is the finding by the World Bank (2000) that the average African country’s GDP per capita had been dropping by an average of 0.7 percent per year while the urban population has been growing at an average of around 4 percent annually. The sheer numerical increase in the region’s urban population has greatly exceeded new job opportunities created by the urban formal sector (Gugler, 1988). Hence, most urban dwellers and new immigrants have ended up being unemployed or underemployed in the informal sector (Stevens et al., 2006). This situation has seen the emergence and consolidation of a large body of urban poor who have little or no income to meet their daily food requirements.

According to neo-classical economic migration theories, the major cause of migration is the differential between rural and urban incomes (Berliner 1977; Todaro, 1969). Worsening economic conditions in urban areas, combined with the ever-increasing cost of living in the city, are therefore supposed to act as impediments to rural-urban migration (Rogers and Williamson 1982). In spite of these potential impediments, urbanization in the developing regions, particularly in sub-Saharan Africa, continues to increase dramatically (Bradshaw, 1987; Rogers 1982). Questions have thus been raised as to why migration to cities has continued in the face of declining urban employment opportunities and mounting food problems among the urban poor. A number of neo-classical scholars (e.g. Todaro, 1969:138; Rogers and Williamson, 1982) have tried to explain this apparent contradiction by arguing that migrants respond not only to the actual wage differences between rural and urban area, but to the expected differential. This means that rural migrants can be expected to continue to move to urban areas as long as their expected urban wages exceed their current rural income (Todaro, 1977). In Southern Africa this therefore translates into the continued movement of people into the urban areas for as long as this expected differential persists, thereby exacerbating an already precarious food insecurity situation.

Given the fact that rural food production in the region has largely remained non-mechanized, producing little surplus (Frayne, 2001), a deepening food insecurity situation becomes inevitable in urban areas. Yet modernization theory has always assumed that rural-urban migrants would end up being better off at their destination than they were in their place of origin.

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Conceptualizations of African urban areas as more developed homogeneous geographic entities with no economic differentiation among its citizens initially rendered urban poverty relatively invisible. Development literature from the 1950s-1970s mostly deals with poverty only from the perspective of inequalities between poorer rural sectors and their richer urban counterparts. Various scholars (e.g. Potts, 2006; Haddard et al., 1999;

Simon, 1997; Amis, 1995; Rakodi, 1995) have shown, however, that huge inequalities do exist within sectors of the urban economy and between groups of people in the urban areas. In fact, inequalities within many cities of the developing world have deepened between the rich and the poor, the ‘included’ and the ‘excluded’ and the ‘formal’ and the

‘informal’ city (Perlman and Sheehan, 2008). In sub-Saharan Africa, for example, 72 percent of the urban population is estimated to be living in slums owing to poverty (UN-HABITAT, 2006:1). In these urban areas, ‘poverty and unemployment are extreme, living conditions are particularly bad, and survival is supported predominantly by the informal sector, which tends in many parts to be survivalist rather than entrepreneurial’ (Watson, 2007: 208).

Under such conditions of extreme material deprivation, the goal of household food security for the urban poor becomes unattainable.