Urbanization and Migration in Taiwan.

Throughout most of this century, Taiwan has experienced a rapid rate of urban growth due to the combined effect of a high rate of natural increase and a continual flow of people from the rural areas to the cities. Taiwan is not unusual in this respect as most other underdeveloped nations have experienced similarly high rates of urban growth. However, the study of urbanization in Taiwan is of particular interest for three reasons. First, among underdeveloped nations, Taiwan is one of the very few to have experienced rapid economic growth. Between 1953 and 1970 the economy grew at about 7 percent per year, industrial production increased eight-fold, and there have been substantial increases in real wages. Second, industrial growth has been accompanied by increased agricultural productivity and land reform. These changes have resulted in a reduction of some of the rural population pressure which might have resulted had the rapid population growth occurred without increases in yield and with the disparities in land ownership which existed prior to the 1953 Land-to-the-Tiller Act. The combined effects of rapid industrial growth and improved rural conditions may have been to give the rural resident more of a choice between staying in the rural areas and moving to the city than is afforded in most developing countries. Third, Taiwan is one of the few nations to possess a household registration system which is sufficiently accurate and complete to permit a detailed study of the urbanization process from official records. The Taiwan household registration system provides both a continual record of the population and a record of all reported moves made by the population. While some moves, especially those of short duration, are not reported, a sufficiently high proportion of all moves is reported to permit the use of these records in the study of migration in Taiwan. In the first part of this paper we shall make use of published data from the household and migration... [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]