Abstract
Migration from rural to urban areas is a promising mechanism to increase aggregate productivity, contribute to a country’s overall economic growth, and improve the lives of the rural poor in many low-income countries. Despite the potential gains from urban migration, we still see large proportions of the populations in lower-income countries residing in rural areas and mainly engaged in subsistence farming. Through a randomized controlled trial, this project studies how unemployment insurance for informal work in Kenya, conditional on migration to Nairobi, can reduce rural poverty by providing the support migrants need to find urban job matches.