Todaro Model
Traditional migration models were developed largely in the context of advanced industrial economies and hence implicitly assume the existence of full or near-full employment. In a full-employment environment, the decision to migrate can be based solely on the desire to secure the highest-paid job wherever it becomes available.
However, developing countries are beset by a chronic unemployment problem, which means that a typical migrant cannot expect to secure a high-paying urban job immediately. Therefore, in deciding to migrate, the individual must balance the probabilities and risks of being unemployed or underemployed for a considerable period of time against the positive urban-rural real income differential. Considering these factors in addition to the traditional model, Todaro model was developed. Thus the fundamental idea of Todaro model is that migrants should consider the various labour market opportunities available to them in the rural and urban sectors and choose the one that maximizes their expected gains from migration. It is a theory that explains rural-urban migration as an economically rational process despite high urban unemployment.

Characteristics:
1. Migration is stimulated primarily by rational economic considerations of relative benefits and costs, mostly financial but also psychological. * The theory assumes that members of the labor force, both actual and potential, compare their expected incomes for a given time period in the urban sector with prevailing average rural incomes and migrate if the return exceeds the cost of migration.
Example:
Average rural farm laborer or working his own land receives an annual average real income of 50 units. A worker with skill or education working in urban, can obtain wage employment yielding an annual real income of 100 units.
In fact, it is much more likely that on