In most rural areas, rural-urban migration results to rapid
deterioration of the rural economy leading to chronic poverty and food
insecurity. This study identifies the benefits of rural – urban migration from the
perception of the non-migrants in three purposively selected rural communities
in Odeda, Ogun State, Nigeria. Results showed that most (73.3%) of the
respondents were male, married (78.9%) with an average age of 47.3 years,
who had lived in the study area for an average of 11.5 years. This study
revealed that perceived factors that mainly caused rural – urban migration
include: advances in education opportunity (93.3%), boredom in agriculture
(74.4%), unemployment (71.1%) and expulsion due to offence or crime (68.9%).
Correlation analysis showed that non-migrants’ socio-economic characteristics
do not influence their perception of the benefits of rural – urban migration while
Chi-square analysis revealed that the perception of non-migrants on benefits
from rural - urban migration is influenced mainly by the marital circumstances
of the rural non-migrant (p < 0.05).This study therefore proposes that good
schools and functional social amenities should be provided in the rural areas.
Agro-allied industries must be set-up in the rural areas to provide jobs
opportunities; agricultural inputs and farming technologies should be
introduced to the rural people to improve the production level. It is therefore
recommended that any measure seeking to influence the process of rural –
urban migration should consider the rural peoples’ perception of benefits of the
rural – urban migration.