Migration Key Issues

7/30/2019 Migration Key Issues

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Chapter 3 MigrationKey Issue 1: Why Do People

Migrate?


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Reasons for Migrating

E.G. Ravenstein, a 19th century geographer, identified 11laws of migration which can be roughly organized into threemain elements: the reasons migrants move, the distancethey move, and the major characteristics of migration.

Migration is a specific type of relocation diffusion and is aform of mobility, a more general term dealing with all typesof movement.

Migration is the long-term movement of a person from onepolitical jurisdiction to another. It can include movement atmany different scales, from one neighborhood to another orfrom one continent to another.

Emigration is movement from a location, whereasimmigration is movement to a location. The differencebetween the number of immigrants and the number ofemigrants is the net migration.


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Reasons for Migrating cont.

People generally migrate because of pushand pull factors. Push factors includeanything that would want to cause

someone to leave their present location,whereas pull factors attract people to anew location.

Four major kinds of push and pull factors

can be identified. These are economic,political, cultural, and environmental.


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Economic Pull Factors

Economic factors that can lead tomigration include job opportunities,cycles of economic growth and

recession, and cost of living.

The United States and Canada havebeen important destinations for

economic migrants lured byeconomic pull factors.


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Cultural Push and Pull Factors

Cultural factors can be especiallycompelling push factors, forcing people toemigrate from a country.

Forced international migration hashistorically occurred for two main culturalreasons: slavery and political instability.

Large groups of people were no longer

forced to migrate as slaves in the 20th

century, but forced international migrationincreased because of political instabilityresulting from cultural diversity.


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Political Push Factors

Armed conflict and the policies of oppressiveregimes have been important political pushfactors in forcing out those who becomerefugees.

According to the United Nations, refugees arepeople who have been forced to migrate fromtheir homes and cannot return for fear ofpersecution because of their race, religion,nationality, membership in a social group, or

political opinion. Of the more than 33 million refugees in the

world, more than two-thirds of them are fromAsia and Africa.


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Political Pull Factors

There are also political pull factors such as the promise ofpolitical freedom.

It was this factor that lured so many people from thecommunist countries of Eastern Europe to Western Europein the second half of the 20th century.

Cultural factors can encourage people to move to placeswhere they will be more at home culturally. A good example of a cultural pull factor is the relocation of

Jews to the newly formed state of Israel after WWII. Israelis the ancestral hearth of Jewish culture, and it serves as aplace where Jewish people can reestablish social ties andcreate a sense of political unity.


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Environmental Pull and Push

Factors Environmental pull and push factors are largely

related to physical geography.

People will be pulled towards physically attractiveregions such as the Rocky Mountains and the

Mediterranean coast of southern Europe. People might also be pushed from places by

floods and droughts. The flooding in NewOrleans and other Gulf coast communities in2005 following Hurricane Katrina caused around1,400 deaths and forced several hundredthousand people from their homes.


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Intervening Obstacles

Migrants do not always go to theirintended destination because of anintervening obstacle, which is an

environmental or cultural featurethat hinders migration.


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Distance of Migration: Internal

Migration

According to Ravenstein, most migrantsmove only a short distance and within acountry. Internal migration is permanentmovement within a country.

Interregional migration is one type ofinternal migration, and is movement fromone region of a country to another.

The other type of internal migration isintraregional migration, movement withina region.


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International Migration

One of Ravensteins laws states that long-distance migrants to other countriesusually relocate to major economic andurban centers.

The permanent migration from onecountry to another is internationalmigration, and it can be voluntary orforced.

Voluntary migration is when someonechooses to leave a place. Forced migration is when someone is

moved from a place without any choice.


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Characteristics of Migrants

A century ago Ravenstein stated that mostlong-distance migrants were male adultsrather than families with children.

Today there are much larger numbers offemales migrating internationally togetherwith their children, especially from Mexicoto the United States. This is a reflectionof the changing role of women.

Much of the migration from Mexico to theUnited States is illegal and seasonal.

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Migration Key Issues