The patterns of lifetime and recent migration have remained similar in 2022 to that of 2012; with the males predominating in both lifetime and recent migration in the urban areas. Sex ratio is found to be higher in urban areas than in rural areas; implying that women predominate in rural migration, as opposed to in the urban areas that are predominated by their male counterparts.
Kigali City registered the highest percentage of lifetime migrants in its resident population (about 48.8 %), followed by the East Province (29.3%), the Southern Province (13.8%), the Northern Province (8.7%) and the Western Province (7.6%). The RPHC5 indicated that the percentage of lifetime migrants in the East Province is two times and higher than that observed in other rural provinces.
The RPHC5 indicated that the recent migration stock shows that the Kigali City and Eastern Province have the highest number of recent in-migrants (502,017 and 453,592, respectively). The remaining provinces (Southern, Western and Northern) are mainly ‘sending’ provinces as they display a significant number of outmigrants.
International lifetime migration is limited: the percentage of Rwandan residents born abroad is about 3 %. Their share in urban areas is 5.6%, whereas in rural areas this percentage is 1.7 %. Their distribution by duration spent at current district of residence shows that the majority of them, regardless of sex or area of residence, have resided in their current district for 10 or more years; these inmigrants were mainly born in neighbouring countries (Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), Uganda, Burundi and Tanzania).