Reasons behind migration

Around 35 percent of all Cambodians live under the poverty line and 20 percent under the food poverty line (MOP, 2006). The poverty rates are highest in rural areas, especially among households engaged in agriculture. The poorest households in the country consist of many young family members and are likely to be headed by an uneducated male.

Poverty figures are lowest in Phnom Penh and among the families whose head has high education. Most of the poor people live in the rural areas of Cambodia, but urban poverty is also a significant problem in the country (OXFAM, 2000; MOP, 1999).

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Nearly 85 percent of Cambodians rely on agriculture as a source of livelihood. These livelihoods are facing many problems, e.g. low irrigation, pests, floods, droughts and landlessness, which decrease the productivity of the land.

The land area per person has been decreasing.

For instance, in the ten years between 1990 and 1999, the cultivated land area decreased by nearly 30 percent from 0.29 ha/capita to 0.21ha/capita. Together with a growing population, this is pushing the rural livelihoods towards rough times (OXFAM, 2000; MOP, 2001).

Nearly 20 percent of the households have no land. The percentage of landless people is highest in the Tonle Sap Region. Over 17 percent of the households are landless in Tonle Sap, whereas in the coastal areas of Cambodia only nine percent of the households have no land (OXFAM, 2000; MOP, 2001).

Land distribution in Cambodia is not equal;

the richest 10 percent of the households own 40 percent of the land while the poorest 40 percent own only 12 percent (MOP, 2001). In addition, some parts of the usable agricultural land are still mined, and often the tenure of land is insecure.

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Due to the deep poverty, even small changes in income or expenses can destroy the finances of a poor family. The problems become severe in case of a sudden illness, death, increasing interest rates, floods, low rice yield or death of a work animal. In this case, the family usually has no other choice than to sell land, take a loan with a high interest rate or migrate (Derks, 1997).

The human development side of poverty - security, dignity, and equality - can also underlie migration, particularly for females (COHRE, 2008).

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Floods and droughts devastate Cambodian rice cultivation. For instance, in 2002 the droughts affected more than two million people and damaged 135.000 hectares of rice. In the same year, the floods, in contrast, influenced the lives of 1.5 million people and covered almost 60.000 hectares of land.

The erratic weather conditions of the region - insufficient rains in the early wet season delaying rice planting and withering rice crops and, on the other hand, floodwaters after heavy rains in the wet season destroying the rice yields - are most probably becoming even more irregular due to the uncertain climatic future (Li and He, 2008; Penny, 2008).

The climate-driven hydrological change will have impacts on the Mekong and Tonle Sap hydrology, affecting biodiversity, fish populations and wetlands, and through these resources influencing the subsistence livelihoods of the regions’ inhabitants (Kummu and Sarkkula, 2008; Penny, 2008).

The extensive hydropower construction plans in the Mekong River affect the natural flow of the river and change the present situation, including the conditions for rice cultivation and fishing. The opinions about the changes and their impacts vary greatly (Li and He, opportunities or employment. In addition, over a third of migrants indicated that the main reason for their migration was moving with their families, which was also mainly connected to economy and working opportunities (NIS, 2000b; 2005a).

The quantity of workforce is increasing rapidly especially in the rural areas of Cambodia.

In the five-year period from 1993 to 1998, 150.000 new workers have entered the labour market annually. As a result of the second baby boom in the early 1990s, over the next

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five years more than 200.000 young people are going to enter the labour market every year (World Bank, 2006a).

The agricultural sector is providing and will offer the major portion of employment opportunities in rural areas. However, there will be a large number of unemployed people, who will not be absorbed by the sector, since there are not enough employment opportunities or spare land available for cultivation. Some minor expansion in the services and small industry sectors has occurred, but much greater effort needs to be made in this respect (UNDP, 2000a).

Many of the currently unemployed are women, handicapped or injured by mines, and other disadvantaged people. Unemployment is particularly high during the agricultural off-season; hence this is also the time for the seasonal migration to take place (OXFAM, 2000; UNDP, 2000).

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The socio-economic conditions are different in urban and rural areas, and the rural inhabitants have many disadvantages in several aspects of life. One of the clearest differences is the average income.

The average monthly income in a Phnom Penh household is around 1.139.553 riels (285 US$) compared to the 314.247 riels (79 US$) in rural areas. The average urban person has hence 3.6 times more money to use than the rural inhabitant. However, the living expenses are higher in the urban areas, which even out the differences to some extent (MOP, 1999).

The remittances sent by the migrant family members working in urban areas have an impact on the income of the rural households.

About 13 percent of rural households having migrants working in the cities receive remittances, on average ca. 327.000 riels (82 US$), corresponding to around 10 percent

Education is not a dominant reason for migration in Cambodia, since only around two percent of migrants have moved for educational reasons. Most of these migrants have moved to the large cities such as Phnom Penh where the education system is more comprehensive. Educational migration is higher among males and in the urban population (NIS, 2000b).

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Around 70 percent of migration in Cambodia takes place between rural areas (Figure 7) (NIS, 2005a).

This trend is understandable considering that agriculture employees constitute around 70 percent of the country’s economically active population.

Among the recent migrants, males have been more likely to move to rural areas and females to urban areas (Acharya, 2003; OXFAM, 2000; NIS, 2005a).

This tendency can be explained by the dominance of agricultural jobs typical of males in rural areas and by the increasing garment industry employing females in urban areas.

The migration flows in the country are slowly changing, and presently the migrants tend to move to urban areas. Almost 15 percent of migration takes place from rural to urban areas and 10 percent between urban areas (NIS, 2000b; NIS, 2005a). The net-migration to urban areas accounts for around 7 percent of the migration. In reality, this number is even higher due to high seasonal migration.

The impact of increasing rural-urban migration is seen in the urban population; the percentages of

“recent” and “very recent” migrants increased from 2.8.4 Rural-urban migration

3.6 percent to 7.1 and from 13.8 percent to 22.4 percent, respectively, in the two-year period from 1996 to 1998 (NIS, 2000b; Acharya, 2003). The noteworthy migration flows between urban areas, on the other hand, indicate that the smaller cities may suffer from population decline as the larger cities, such as Phnom Penh, are experiencing population growth (Rao et al., 2002).

The main destinations for urban migration are Phnom Penh, Sihanoukville, Siem Reap, Battambang as well as the market towns along the Thai border. These towns have attracted migrants to work in the construction industry, factories and service sectors, and in the growing tourism sector (OXFAM, 2000; Acharya, 2003). Phnom Penh is an important political, financial and educational centre of Cambodia and has been the dominant centre of attraction for a long time (De Ville & Westfall, 2001). Even before the Khmer Rouge regime, permanent and seasonal migrants constituted a major part of the city’s population (Sokhum, 2005).

Figure 7 The net rural-urban migration is around seven percent (NIS, 2005a)

The Cambodian Population Censuses from 1998 and 2004 estimate that around 16 percent of Cambodians are urban (NIS, 2000b; 2005a).

However, when taking into account the below-mentioned deficiencies in these studies as well as the high seasonal migration taking place in the country, the urbanization rate today is higher than presented in these studies. Rao (2002) and ESCAP (2005) have different approaches than the above-mentioned analyses and thus they estimate that around 18 percent of the population lives in urban 2.9 URBANIZATION

URBAN RURAL

10 % 69 %

7 % 14 %

Figure 8 Cambodia has the lowest level of urbanization in the Lower Mekong River Region (ESCAP, 2005) areas. The World Bank gives an even higher estimate

of 24 percent. There are also great variations in the estimates of future urbanization, but the trend is familiar; urbanization is increasing in the country (Rao et al., 2002, World Bank, 2006d).

Even though there are many reasons why urbanization is taking place, rural-urban migration is one important factor that has a remarkable effect on urbanization. Rapid urbanization is a big dilemma in several developing countries. Many problems with inadequate infrastructure and employment have occurred due to high migration rates. At present, the problems are not yet very deep in the Lower Mekong River Region, where the urbanization rates are around 20-30 percent.

The estimations, however, show that urbanization will increase rapidly in the future and reach 30-40 percent by 2030 (Figure 8).

In recent years, Cambodia has seen clear changes in the livelihood sectors. The shares of service, tourism and industry sectors have grown (e.g. chapter 2.4.).

These changes have augmented the importance of the urban areas and increased rural-urban migration. The overall development in the country is also very much focusing on urban development, which has also increased the importance of urban areas. The role of Phnom Penh for Cambodian society and economy, for instance, has become crucial and thus it can be said that the power and

domination of this urban agglomeration is very strong nowadays. If the country’s development plans continue to be so urban orientated also in the future, the role and power of the urban areas in Cambodia will increase in the future.

Since urbanization leads to many significant changes in societies and economies, there is also a need to reform the governance structures to support partnerships between local governments, civil society organizations as well as the private sector to make the urbanization inclusive and sustainable (ESCAP, 2005).

Urban areas in Cambodia are defined in the Cambodian Population Census (1998) as follows:

The four urban districts (city centre) of Phnom Penh.

The entire population of Krong Pailin, Krong Keab and Sihanoukville.

The population of the provincial capital of all the other provinces.

This definition is, however, somewhat vague.

For example, the secondary towns, which are sometimes very vital in Cambodia, are not included in the analyses of urban areas. The

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