Landflucht

Landflucht (German: [ˈlantˌflʊxt], "flight from the land") refers to the mass migration of peasants into the cities that occurred in Germany (and throughout much of Europe) in the late 19th century.

The word landflucht has some negative connotations, as it was coined by agricultural employers (often of the German aristocracy), who were lamenting their labor shortages due to depopulation of rural areas.

[5] The former agricultural workers and farmers were absorbed into a rapidly growing factory labor class.

[1] While in 1800 there had been fewer than 100,000 industrial workers in Germany, their number approached eight million at the turn of the next century.

One cause of this mass-migration was the relative decrease in rural income compared to the rates of pay in the cities.