The influence of rapid rural-urban migration on Korean national fertility levels

We apply an autoregressive model to personal migration and pregnancy histories recorded in the 1974 Korean World Fertility Survey to assess the adaptation effect of rural-urban migration on migrant fertility and national fertility levels. The results support the hypothesis that there is a substantial adaptation effect which increases as the size of the destination city increases. The effect of rural-urban migration on national fertility levels is significant. It was estimated that the 945,400 rural-urban women migrants who moved between 1965 and 1970 would avoid, on average, 71,300 births annually during their 24 years of urban residence.