Migration and Development Across Urban Hierarchies: Comparative Evidence from the Global South

Over the last two centuries, the world has increasingly transformed from a predominantly rural to an urban society. Migration has been central to this process, yet the relationship between migration and development conditions remains poorly understood at the city level. This thesis examines how health, education, and living standards are associated with the intensity and composition of migration flows across cities of different sizes in the Global South. Drawing on census data from multiple low- and middle-income countries and a city definition that captures urban cores together with their surrounding commuting zones, this thesis advances a spatially disaggregated analysis of internal out-migration, internal in-migration, and international immigration across four empirical chapters. The first chapter introduces the dissertation, situates it within the broader literature on migration and development, and outlines the main research questions and analytical approach. The second chapter asks whether cities at early stages of development tend to see rising out-migration that only falls again once development reaches higher levels and whether this pattern holds when looking at changes within cities over time. The second chapter shows that while cities with higher development levels tend to have lower out-migration overall, this relationship doesn't hold when looking at how individual cities change over time, and instead, different aspects of development, such as health, wealth, and education, matter more or less depending on a city's size and position in the urban hierarchy. The third chapter shifts to the individual level, finding that improvements in local conditions are consistently associated with higher out-migration, although the strength of this association depends on both individuals' educational attainment and the specific dimension of development involved. The fourth chapter looks at the educational background of immigrants arriving in cities, finding that more developed cities tend to have higher shares of more highly educated newcomers, while the largest cities have immigrants across the full range of educational backgrounds. The fifth chapter extends the analysis to the distinction between internal and international migrants, finding that these two populations show different patterns of association with local development and inequality conditions. Collectively, the four chapters highlight how the relationship between development and migration varies across city size, development dimensions, migration types, and individual characteristics, while offering insights into the drivers and outcomes associated with urban population change. The sixth chapter summarizes the key findings, situates the contribution of this research, and discusses its limitations. Overall, this thesis establishes a foundation for further study of urban migration while demonstrating the value of a comparative, multidimensional, urban-sensitive approach in the study of h