Rural Families and Urban Households or Rural Households and Urban Families? Migration, Urbanization, and Family Change in Nigeria

Daniel Smith, Brown University
Thanh-Huyen Vu, University of Chicago

This paper presents demographic and ethngraphic data to show that among Igbo people in Nigeria, as urbanization increases, extended families and kin groups continue to be tremendously important social institutions that link households, families, and generations through mechanisms of reciprocity that combine moral obligation, emotional attachment, and pragmatic self-interest. Further, the paper suggests that categories typically used to organize demographic analyses impose a structure that fundamentally misrepresents the reality of how Igbos have adapted to migration and urbanization. The paper argues that the social organization of domestic groups in both rural and urban communities can be adequately understood only if the rural community and its urban migrants are treated as one continuous social field. Urbanization, when looked at from the perspective of individuals, households, families and communities involved, is shown to be a process that unfolds simultaneously in rural and urban places, with processes in each setting affecting the other.