Effects of agricultural development policies on migration in peninsular Malaysia

State planning plays a central role in Malaysia’s social and economic development. The government’s rural development policies are designed to promote agricultural incomes and help counterbalance ethnic inequalities. The Federal Land Development Authority (FELDA) implements one of the internationally most successful land development and resettlement programs. In this article, we quantify the impact of FELDA settlements on local out-migration rates, linking macro and micro approaches and using data from the Malaysian Family Life Survey, national censuses, and other sources. A model of instantaneous migration rates specifies an individual’s migration rate as a function of individual-level sociodemographic characteristics, the level of urbanization of the origin and destination, and the extent of rural development at the district of current residence. Our results show that in the late 1960s and early 1970s, the existence of rural development centers in a district reduced the levels of outmigration to pre-1965 levels.