ABSTRACT
This chapter provides a general framework for analyzing the relationship between migration and underdevelopment. Some may view the framework presented as being particularly applicable to rural-to-urban migration. The chapter provides a brief discussion of Karl Marx's views on labor displacement to urban areas. It presents the review of the most relevant literature, which prepares the groundwork for the political economy framework of migration. The social science literature abounds with migration studies many of which have developed different typologies and models. While migration has been a common occurrence throughout human history across the globe, large-scale sustained migratory flows have been generally associated with the post-industrial revolution phase. The colonial state's migration policy created a shortage of productive labor within the domestic economy. Such labor scarcity became instrumental in the colony's agricultural underdevelopment as farming became the "domain of women, the young, aged and ill, and other 'unproductive' persons" whom the colonial state prohibited from migrating with their productive adults.
