Vol. 1 No. 1 (2019): Networks, Perceptions, and Migration Decisions: A Comparative Analysis of Young Migrants from the Gurage and Wolayita Areas to Addis Ababa

Abstract
In Ethiopia, rural-urban migration has been visibly dominated by the mobility of the youth. Scholarly works in the area have exhaustively identified the prominent causes as well as effects of this pattern of mobility. By going beyond the push-pull categorization, this study comparatively examines the role of social networks in the migration decision of young rural-urban migrants. Precisely, revealing the nexus between social networks, migrants’ perceptions of their home, and destination, vis-à-vis migration decision has been the concern of this inquiry. The study being of a qualitative type, interview and focus group discussion were employed as the main instruments of data collection. Having adopted a purposive sampling design, participants of the study were selected by using snowball and quota sampling techniques.