MIGRATION

Chapter 3

What Is Migration? • Movement

– Cyclic movement: Movement away from home for a short period

•Commuting

•Seasonal movement

•Nomadism

– Periodic movement: Movement away from home for a longer period.

•Migrant labor

•Transhumance

•Military service

• Migration: A change in residence intended to be permanent

International migration: Movement across country borders (implying a degree of

permanence)

Internal migration: Movement within a single country’s borders (implying a

degree of permanence)

Why Do People Migrate?

• Forced migration: Movers have no choice

but to relocate

Kinds of Voluntary Migration

• Step migration: When a migrant follows a series of stages, or steps, toward a final destination.

Intervening opportunity : At one of the steps along

the path, pull factors encourage the migrant to settle there

• Chain migration: Further migration to a place where friends or relatives have already settled

Voluntary Migration

• Migrants weigh push

and pull factors to

decide

– Whether to move

– Where to go

• Distance decay: Many

migrants settle closer

to their old home than

they originally

contemplate

Ravenstein’s Laws (Gravity Model)

1. Every migration flow generates a return or countermigration.

2. The majority of migrations move a short distance.

3. Migrants who move longer distances tend to choose big-city destinations.

4. Urban residents are less migratory than inhabitants of rural areas.

5. Families are less likely to make international moves than young adults.

Push and Pull Factors

• Legal status

• Economic conditions

• Power relationships

• Political circumstances

• Armed conflict and civil war

• Environmental conditions

• Culture and traditions

• Technological advances

Where Do People Migrate?

• Influences on major global migration flows from

1550–1950

– Exploration

– Colonization

– The Atlantic slave trade

• Impacts

– Places migrants leave

– Places to which migrants go

Major Global Migration Flows

(before 1950)

Regional Migration Flows

Migration to neighboring

countries

For short term

economic opportunities

To reconnect with

cultural groups across

borders

To flee political conflict

or war Islands of development: Places where

foreign investment, jobs, and

infrastructure are concentrated

Migration for Economic Opportunity

Chinese migration in

late 1800s and

1900s throughout

Southeast Asia to

work in trade,

commerce, and

finance

• Migration of about 700,000 Jews to then-Palestine between 1900 and 1948

• Forced migration of 600,000 Palestinian Arabs after 1948, when the land was divided into two states (Israel and Palestine)

Migration to Reconnect with Cultural Groups

Internal Migration Flows

Guest Workers

Migrants allowed into a country to fill a labor need,

assuming the workers will go “home” once the

labor need subsides

Have short term work visas

Send remittances to home country

Refugees

People who flee across an international boundary because

of a well-founded fear of being persecuted for reasons of

race, religion, nationality, membership of a particular social

group, or political opinion

• Subsaharan Africa

• North Africa and Southwest Asia

• South Asia

• Southeast Asia

• Europe

Regions of Dislocation

How Do Governments Affect

Migration?

• Immigration laws

• U.S. history

– Little restriction

– Quotas by nationality

– Selective immigration

Post–September 11