Rural-to-urban migration, kinship networks, and fertility among the Igbo in Nigeria
Reproductive Health
25
Issue: 2
(12 - 2011)
Like many African rural-to-urban migrants, Igbo-speaking migrants to cities in
Nigeria maintain close ties to their places of origin. ‘Home people’ constitute a
vital core of most migrants’ social networks. The institution of kinship enables
migrants to negotiate Nigeria’s clientelistic political economy. In this context,
dichotomous distinctions between rural and urban can be inappropriate analytical
concepts because kinship obligations and community ties that extend across rural
and urban space create a continuous social field. This paper presents ethno-
graphic data to suggest that fertility behavior in contemporary Igbo-speaking
Nigeria cannot be understood without taking into account the ways in which rural
and urban social and demographic regimes are mutually implicated and dialecti-
cally constituted (anthropological demography; migration; kinship; reproductive
behavior; Nigeria[]
0