Pull Factors in Internal Migration Are Often Based on Perceptions Rather Than Reality

Overview and Core Argument

The statement highlights a fundamental paradox in internal migration: individuals move driven by attractive “pull factors” that, upon arrival, frequently turn out to be exaggerated, distorted, or entirely false perceptions of urban reality. This disconnect between migration aspirations based on perceived opportunities and the harsh realities migrants encounter reveals critical gaps in information, expectation formation, and decision-making processes. Understanding this perception-reality gap is essential for comprehending why millions of rural-to-urban migrants experience profound disillusionment despite moving towards perceived opportunities.

Theoretical Frameworks Explaining Perception-Reality Gaps

Aspirations-Capabilities Framework (De Haas, 2021)

Core Theoretical Model

• The aspirations-capabilities framework conceptualizes migration as a function of aspirations and capabilities to migrate within perceived geographical opportunity structures
• De Haas distinguishes between aspirations (subjective perceptions about opportunities and life elsewhere) and capabilities (actual resources and freedom to migrate)
• The framework reveals that people’s migration decisions are based on perceived rather than objective conditions—both general life aspirations and more specific migration aspirations are affected by culture, education, personal disposition, identification, and images to which people are exposed

Application to Perception Problem

• Although local living conditions may improve significantly, people’s general life aspirations often increase faster than objective improvements, leading to growing migration aspirations despite actual progress
• Education and media exposure—while improving capabilities—simultaneously increase aspirations by exposing people to alternative consumerist, urban, and foreign lifestyles that create a culture of migration independent of objective material conditions
• This explains De Haas’s empirical puzzle: despite significant income increases over decades in Morocco’s Todgha valley, out-migration continued unabated because aspirations grew faster than reality
• The framework reveals that aspirations are shaped by perception, not reality: migrants visualize an idealized urban life based on limited information rather than accurate assessment

Lee’s Migration Model (1966)

Theoretical Framework: Intervening Obstacles Model

• Lee’s comprehensive theory identifies four primary factors determining migration volume and migrant characteristics: factors at origin, factors at destination, intervening obstacles, and personal factors
• Critically, Lee recognized that perfect assessment differs between origin and destination: individuals possess near-perfect knowledge of their birthplace through long association, but knowledge of destination areas involves ignorance and uncertainty
• Lee argued that “the real situation prevailing at the places of origin and destination are not as important in affecting migration as an individual’s perception of these factors“
• The process of perception depends on personal factors like awareness, intelligence, contacts, and cultural milieu—not on objective reality

Specific Hypothesis on Perception

• Lee proposed that long association with a place results in over-evaluation of positive factors and under-evaluation of negative factors in the area of origin, while perceived difficulties lead to inaccurate evaluation of destination factors
• The perceived difference between origin and destination areas varies by lifecycle stage, with younger individuals having greater aspirations to migrate based on incomplete information

Application to Perception-Reality Gap

• Lee’s model directly explains why pull factors are perceptual: migrants lack complete information about destination areas, leading to systematic misperceptions that exaggerate urban opportunities

Relative Deprivation Theory (Stark, 1984)

Theoretical Framework

• Relative deprivation theory posits that migration decisions are not solely based on absolute income maximization but on minimizing feelings of deprivation relative to one’s reference group
• Relative deprivation is defined as “an increasing function of not having something one wants, sees someone else having, or sees as feasible to have”
• A household’s relative deprivation depends on: (1) their own well-being status; (2) the well-being of others in their community; and (3) their perception of their position within the local wealth distribution

Application to Perception-Reality Gap

• Media exposure, return migration of successful migrants, and exposure to others’ relative wealth creates perceived deprivation—the feeling that others have achieved urban success—which may be exaggerated and unrepresentative
• Seeing successful returnees creates a selection bias problem: communities observe successful migrants returning with material goods but rarely see return migrants who failed, creating a skewed perception of urban success rates
• Relative deprivation theory explains why migrants move to cities not because cities are objectively better but because they perceive others (reference group) succeeding in cities, creating aspiration-capability mismatches
• Empirical evidence confirms: households with higher relative deprivation show greater migration propensity regardless of absolute income levels, demonstrating that perception of others’ success drives migration more than objective urban opportunity assessment

Information Frictions and Social Networks Framework (Barnett-Howell et al., 2025)

Theoretical Framework: Information Asymmetry Model

• Recent experimental research reveals systematic information gaps between rural and urban areas: villagers underestimate urban earnings by 30-60% on average
• Information frictions create fundamental asymmetries in perception: rural populations lack accurate data on urban employment rates, actual wage levels, working conditions, and costs of living
• Social networks transmit information but often distort reality: successful migrants dominate communication networks, creating survivor bias where communities hear primarily about success stories rather than failure rates

Empirical Evidence

• In a randomized trial with 17,000 Kenyan households, providing accurate information through household visits increased migration and improved economic outcomes
• This demonstrates that actual pull factors (objective urban opportunities) differ from perceived pull factors (inflated expectations), and when perception gaps are closed, migration patterns and outcomes change
• The framework reveals that migrants initially underestimate urban opportunities, suggesting they migrate based on perception underestimating reality, but this underestimation reflects uncertainty and information gaps rather than accurate assessment of actual competitive conditions

Specific Perception-Reality Gaps in Pull Factors

Economic Opportunities and Employment

Perceived Pull Factor

• Media portrayals, anecdotal evidence from returnees, and urban myths amplify perceptions of abundant, well-paying jobs in cities
• Successful returnees display material goods and recount stories of urban wealth, creating idealized narratives of urban employment
• Social media and entertainment media present stylized urban lifestyles that suggest universal access to good jobs and prosperity

Reality vs. Perception

• Upon arrival, migrants discover fierce competition for jobs, often ending up in the informal sector with low wages, precarious employment, and poor working conditions
• Actual urban employment rates are lower than perceived, with significant unemployment and underemployment among rural-origin migrants
• Informal sector jobs dominate rural migrant employment, offering no job security, minimal benefits, and vulnerability to exploitation
• Wage premiums over rural income often fail to materialize: migrants frequently earn only marginally more than rural income after accounting for urban living costs and job instability
• The perceived pull factor of “abundant employment” masks reality: competition for urban jobs is intense, quality positions are limited, and most migrant employment is precarious

Modeling Framework: Harris-Todaro Model with Perception Gap

• The Harris-Todaro model predicts migration based on expected income: individuals migrate when expected urban income (actual wage × employment probability) exceeds rural income
• However, migrants often misperceive employment probability: they observe successful employed migrants but underestimate unemployment rates among the broader migrant population
• This perception-reality gap in employment probability drives migration even when expected income (correctly calculated) would not justify movement

Housing and Living Standards

Perceived Pull Factor

• Migrants perceive access to better housing, electricity, water, sanitation, and modern amenities in cities based on media representations and successful migrant stories
• The contrast between rural infrastructure gaps and urban infrastructure creates powerful aspirations for improved living standards
• Perceived urban housing symbolizes modernization and improved quality of life

Reality vs. Perception

• Housing is often scarce and expensive, leading to growth of slums and squatter settlements where migrants cluster in informal housing with inadequate living standards
• Housing costs consume disproportionate shares of migrant incomes, leaving insufficient resources for other necessities
• Overcrowded slum housing frequently lacks adequate sanitation, ventilation, and safety, sometimes offering living conditions worse than rural homes
• Access to public services, while ostensibly better, is overwhelmed by demand: water supply is unreliable, electricity access is limited, and sanitation facilities are inadequate
• The perceived glamour of urban housing often clashes with harsh realities of slum living where migrants settle

Quality of Life and Social Services

Perceived Pull Factor

• Education opportunities in cities are perceived as universally superior, attracting families seeking better schools and higher education
• Healthcare facilities are perceived as more accessible and higher quality
• Cultural, entertainment, and social opportunities are perceived as abundant and accessible

Reality vs. Perception

• Quality education often requires private school fees beyond migrant affordability, and public schools are overcrowded
• Healthcare services, while more available, remain costly for migrants without insurance or stable income
• Cultural and social opportunities, while existing, are often inaccessible to poor migrants due to costs and spatial segregation
• Social isolation results from migrants’ lack of established networks, despite perceiving cities as socially vibrant

Mechanisms Creating Perception-Reality Gaps

Information Asymmetry and Biased Information Sources

Selective Exposure and Survivor Bias

• Communities receive information primarily from successful migrants who return or stay in contact, creating systematic survivor bias
• Failed migrants who return disappointed are less likely to communicate negative experiences, leading to skewed representation
• Media representations emphasize success stories and urban glamour, not the struggles of the poor and unemployed
• Social networks transmit information through chain migration, but chains often originate from early successful settlers who establish themselves before competition intensified

Information Decay and Outdated Perceptions

• Information about urban conditions becomes outdated as cities change, yet migrants base decisions on information that may no longer reflect current reality
• Labor market conditions shift rapidly; information about job availability may be accurate when received but obsolete by migration time

Role of Media and Cultural Production

Media Representation Framework

• Entertainment media, news coverage, and social media create idealized representations of urban life emphasizing opportunity, wealth, and social status
• The “culture of migration” develops through repeated exposure to narratives linking migration success with material achievement and social prestige
• Visual media particularly distorts perception: successful migrants displaying consumer goods create powerful aspirational imagery despite representing small population fractions

Decision-Making Under Uncertainty

Bounded Rationality Model

• Individuals make migration decisions under uncertainty using limited information and heuristics, not through rational optimization
• Availability heuristic leads migrants to overweight memorable stories of successful relatives while underweighting statistical information on failure rates
• Migrants often apply optimism bias—assuming they will be among successful migrants despite population-level evidence suggesting most migrants experience modest or negative outcomes

Empirical Manifestations of Perception-Reality Gaps

Disillusionment and Disappointment Cycles

Expected vs. Actual Outcomes

• Migrants arrive expecting well-paying jobs but encounter unemployment or informal sector work at low wages
• Initial disillusionment is common: migrants experience stress, health problems, and depression from unmet expectations
• Perpetuation of cycles of poverty: disillusionment does not deter future migration; rather, failed migrants often try again or communities continue sending migrants despite receiving disappointed returnees’ accounts
• Information from disappointed returnees is often dismissed as personal failure rather than systemic barriers, so communities continue aspiring to migrate based on others’ perceived success

Secondary Migration and Serial Movement

Movement Pattern

• Migrants often engage in serial movement, migrating from rural areas to smaller cities (where initial experiences remain disappointing) and subsequently to larger metros
• Each movement is driven by updated perceptions formed in previous destinations that still underestimate actual competitive pressures
• Serial migration reflects continuing perception-reality gaps: each new location holds new aspirations that again prove unrealistic

Return Migration Patterns

Theoretical Framework: Selective Return Migration

• Return migration is often driven not by objective failure but by the size of perception-reality gaps: migrants return when expected vs. actual income differences exceed personal psychological and material costs
• Some return migrants later re-migrate to the same destination or elsewhere, suggesting that the perception-reality gap persists across time and space
• However, return migrants who re-migrate show more realistic expectations, suggesting some learning from previous disillusionment

Policy and Theoretical Implications

Bridging Information Gaps Through Governance Frameworks

Evidence-Based Intervention Model

• De Haas’ aspirations-capabilities framework suggests interventions must target both aspirations (correcting unrealistic perceptions) and capabilities (enabling informed decision-making)
• Providing accurate information about urban labor markets, housing costs, employment rates, and actual wages reduces migration aspirations toward more realistic levels
• Social network-based interventions connecting rural households with urban migrants can provide more balanced information when designed to include unsuccessful migrants’ experiences

Reframing Perception-Reality Gap Understanding

Theoretical Reconceptualization

• Pull factors are best understood as perceived opportunity structures rather than objective conditions; policy interventions should recognize this distinction
• The perception-reality gap is not a temporary information problem but reflects structural uncertainty in internal migration where individuals must decide with incomplete information about complex, dynamic urban labor markets
• Lee’s model remains analytically powerful precisely because it recognizes that actual conditions matter less than perceptions in determining migration behavior
• Relative deprivation theory explains why development and rising incomes often increase migration: as aspirations rise faster than capabilities improve, the perception-reality gap widens

Significance and Legacy

Pull factors in internal migration fundamentally operate through perception-mediated processes rather than objective assessment of urban conditions. The aspirations-capabilities framework, Lee’s intervening obstacles model, relative deprivation theory, and recent experimental evidence all converge on the finding that migrants make decisions based on distorted perceptions of urban opportunities, selective information from successful migrants, and aspirations that exceed realistic achievement probabilities. This perception-reality gap persists because information asymmetries prevent accurate assessment, social networks transmit biased information favoring successful migrants, media representations idealize urban life, and decision-making occurs under fundamental uncertainty about complex labor markets and competitive conditions. Rather than viewing this gap as a temporary information problem, contemporary migration theory recognizes it as inherent to migration decision-making: individuals must decide to migrate without complete knowledge of actual conditions, so perceptions—shaped by culture, education, media, networks, and relative deprivation—inevitably diverge from reality. Understanding this gap is essential for comprehending why internal migration persists despite widespread migrant disillusionment and why development interventions targeting rural areas often fail to reduce migration as expected—because rising aspirations from improved education and media exposure increase perception-reality gaps even as absolute conditions improve. The enduring significance of perception-based pull factors is that they drive migration behavior independent of actual urban opportunities, meaning that addressing migration patterns requires not only improving urban labor markets and services but fundamentally reshaping the information environments and aspirational frameworks through which rural populations perceive urban opportunities.