Abstract:
This study is primarily concerned with examining the socio-cultural and economic factors
that contribute to rural-urban migration from Sodo Zuria district to Sodo town of Wolaita
Zone. To attain this objective, a cross sectional design was conducted. Both quantitative and
qualitative research approach were employed. The quantitative data was collected through
questionnaire from 384 migrants. Besides, qualitative data was collected by using four focus
group discussions (each contains six members) and nine key informant interviews. Both
primary and secondary data were used to collect the data needed for this study. The
descriptive statistics like percentages and frequency distributions were used to analyze
quantitative data while qualitative data were presented by using narrative analysis. The
major findings of this study revealed that rural-urban migration has been contributed by
different pushing and pulling factors of socio-cultural and economic factors. The community’s
culture, strong social contacts, the flow of inflated information, desire for personal freedom
and independence life; problem of accessing food and hunger were the mainly identified
socio-cultural factors that greatly influenced the decision of people to leave the rural area.
The earning difference in terms of its level and sources; small size of farm land, traditional
farming system, soil infertility, and the difference of occupational opportunities were the
economic factors behind rural-urban migration. The study also discovered that poor state of
infrastructural facilities such as access to education, health, electricity, clean water and
adequate road have been pushed most of the people to leave their village. It was suggested
that a great effort has to be exerted to make the rural area attractive to live and work in,
create effective awareness about the real images of the town, narrow the gaps of income as
well as job opportunity differences of the place of origin and destination. Also, creation of
mechanized way of farming; raising the community’s knowledge about the importance of
family planning and the problems of having a large family size were suggested for a
successful minimization of rural-urban migration. In addition, creation of adequate
infrastructural facilities in the place of origin was forwarded recommendation based on the
major findings
