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Typology of African Internal and External Migration

Source: Adapted from John Oucho and William Gould, "Internal Migration, Urbanization, and Population Distribution in Karen Foote, Kenneth Hill, and Linda Martin, eds., Demographic Change in Sub-Saharan Africa (Washington, D.C., 1993). 
Direction
Circulation
Definitive Migration
Periodic
Seasonal
Long-Term
Rural-rural
Movement of dealers in produce and livestock
Pastoral displacement due to environmental hazards
Labor migration to agriculture, wage sector, mining, and other rural 
Agriculture land colonization; resettlement and land consolidations; spontaneous migrations from population pressure areas
Rural-urban
Movement of dealers in agricultural produce
 
Movement of employment and underemployed persons
Spontaneous migration to urban areas, especially slums, shantytowns, and suburbs
Urban-rural
Movements of dealers in urban manufactured goods (e.g., soap, foods, medicines)
Return migration of urbanites during peak agricultural seasons
"Repatriation" of unemployed persons; labor migration to rural agro-industrial and mining areas
Return migration of retired persons and unsuccessful urban migrants (the latter are frequently rural-urban migrants again later)
Urban-urban
Movement of self-employed persons and female sex workers
 
Movement of transferred workers; self-employed persons relocating elsewhere 
Migration of second- or later- generation migrants to other urban areas