“If I ask you to consider the image in your mind of a migrant girl, probably you – like me – have a vision of a girl embarking from a rural village on a trek to the city,” says Mark Montgomery of the Population Council in this week’s podcast. But, “Is that what the empirical realities show?”

Perhaps not: “It is far more common for urban and migrant girls to come from other cities and towns than it is for them to come from rural villages,” he explains.

Montgomery spoke May 14 at the launch of a new Population Council report, Girls on the Move: Adolescent Girls and Migration in the Developing World. Among other issues, the report underscores a lack of research on the motivations and condition of adolescent girls migrating between cities and towns.

A majority of the world’s population already lives in urban areas and cities will continue to grow for the foreseeable future. Particularly in developing countries, young women are drawn to cities in search of social and economic opportunities. The decision to relocate can have dramatic consequences, Montgomery says, and “the research community has not caught up to and recognized these demographic realities.”

Girls on the Move encourages researchers to not only focus on the vulnerability of rural-to-urban migrants, but also on those who move between cities. “We must know: Are girls coming from other cities and towns advantaged and savvy about cities and city life?” Montgomery asks. “Or do they suffer from many of the same disadvantages that rural girls might experience? Today, we simply don’t know.”

“This is one of the many evidence gaps, and one of the most important, that really must be addressed if we are to set policies and programs on a proper foundation of evidence.”

Download Montgomery’s slides to follow along.

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