REPUBLIKA.CO.ID, JAKARTA -- Migration to urban areas is inevitable, as this issue had yet to be addressed properly, according to Head of the Center for Population Research at the Indonesian Institute of Sciences (LIPI) Haning Romdiati.

"Urbanization is an old problem that always occurs, as the approach to handling this issue has not changed. Individually, it is difficult to prevent rural people from migrating to urban areas," Haning affirmed here on Thursday.

According to Haning, urban areas continue to attract villagers with low educational background to migrate and work in the informal sectors.

"One way to prevent rural people from moving to the cities is to narrow the gap between the urban and rural areas by prioritizing rural development," she noted.

Haning affirmed that the home-going tradition during Eid al-Fitr or Lebaran holiday mass exodus by the people working in urban areas indeed has an impact on the population if they bring along their relatives from villages while returning to the cities.

She pointed out that such a phenomenon usually occurs among people with low level of education who work in the informal sectors, but individuals with higher education and working in the formal sector do not follow this trend.

"It will become a problem if the less educated people are unable to compete in the city and then become unemployed and live in slums," she added.

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