When Women Go to the City: African Women’s Rural-Urban Migration and the Sustainable Development Goals

Since the 1980s, there has been an increase in the rural-urban migration of African women seeking employment in the urban informal economy. However, perceptions of internal migration and informal employment as economically, socially and politically destabilizing have led to a policy stance that discourages these processes. Drawing on field research in Ghana, this chapter shows that while rural-urban migration gives women access to an independent source of income through informal employment and allows women to make remittances that facilitate investments in education in their origin households, the emancipatory potential of migration for women is limited by policies that stigmatize or penalize rural-urban migration and informal employment. Sustainable Development Goals 5 and 8 require African governments to promote gender equality and empower women by expanding their freedom to choose whether or not to migrate, by protecting labour rights, and by promoting safe and secure working environments for women who do migrate from rural areas to work in the urban informal economy.