The impacts of mobile phone and personal networks on migration: evidence from Uganda

Personal networks can help rural workers find urban jobs. When the information flow increases due to the expansion of mobile phone, the new information flow may strengthen existing personal networks, such as ethnic networks, or provide opportunities to those who were previously outside of personal networks. We examine combined impacts of mobile phone and personal networks by using panel data of 856 households in 94 communities in rural Uganda, where the number of communities covered by mobile phone coverage increased from 41 to 87 communities over a two-year period between first and second surveys in 2003 and 2005, respectively. First, we find that the mobile phone network expansion increases the chance of choosing migration to find a job more for individuals who belong to a larger ethnic group than a smaller ethnic group in Kampala. Second, the possession of mobile phone handsets at the household level increases an individual’s chance of leaving his or her rural village to find a job when we instrumented the handset possession.