Chapter 3: Migration 81

may migrate and send back a message that gives others the idea
of migrating. For example, many Europeans migrated to the
United States in the nineteenth century because very favorable
reports from early migrants led them to believe that the streets
of American cities were paved with gold.

KEY ISSUE 1
Why Do People
Migrate?
■ Reasons for Migrating
■ Distance of Migration
■ Characteristics of Migrants
Geography has no comprehensive theory of migration,
although a nineteenth-century outline of 11 migration
“laws” written by E. G. Ravenstein is the basis for contem-
porary geographic migration studies. To understand
where and why migration occurs, Ravenstein’s “laws” can
be organized into three groups: the reasons why migrants
move, the distance they typically move, and their charac-
teristics. Each of these elements is addressed in this sec-
tion of the chapter. ■

FIGURE 3-1 U.S. immigration. This mother and three children immigrated to
Reasons for Migrating the United States from Italy around 1900.

• Most people migrate for economic reasons.

• Cultural and environmental factors also induce migration,
although not as frequently as economic factors.
The United States and Canada have been especially promi-
nent destinations for economic migrants (Figure 3-1). Many
People decide to migrate because of push factors and pull fac-
European immigrants to North America in the nineteenth cen-
tors. A push factor induces people to move out of their present
tury truly expected to find streets paved with gold. While not
location, whereas a pull factor induces people to move into a
literally so gilded, the United States and Canada did offer Euro-
new location. As migration for most people is a major step not
peans prospects for economic advancement. This same percep-
taken lightly, both push and pull factors typically play a role. To
tion of economic plenty now lures people to the United States
migrate, people view their current place of residence so nega-
and Canada from Latin America and Asia.
tively that they feel pushed away, and they view another place
so attractively that they feel pulled toward it.
We can identify three major kinds of push and pull factors: Cultural Push and Pull Factors
economic, cultural, and environmental. Usually, one of the Cultural factors can be especially compelling push factors,
three factors emerges as most important, although as will be forcing people to emigrate from a country. Forced international
discussed later in this chapter, ranking the relative importance migration has historically occurred for two main cultural rea-
of the three factors can be difficult and even controversial. sons: slavery and political instability.
Millions of people were shipped to other countries as
slaves or as prisoners, especially from Africa to the Western
Economic Push and Pull Factors Hemisphere, during the eighteenth and early nineteenth cen-
Most people migrate for economic reasons. People think turies (see Chapter 7). Large groups of people are no longer
about emigrating from places that have few job opportunities, forced to migrate as slaves, but forced international migration
and they immigrate to places where jobs seem to be available. persists because of political instability resulting from cultural
Because of economic restructuring, job prospects often vary diversity.
from one country to another and within regions of the same According to the United Nations, refugees are people who
country. have been forced to migrate from their homes and cannot
82 The Cultural Landscape

60°
80° 40° 20° 0° SWEDEN
R U S S I A

INTERNATIONAL REFUGEES
CROATIA
SERBIA To
100,000 and above GEORGIA
Un
ite
d
BOSNIA NORTH St
UNITED & HERZ. TURKEY KOREA ate 40°
STATES 10,000–99,999 SYRIA s
C H I N A
From LEBANON AFGHANISTAN
China MOROCCO IRAQ IRAN
NEPAL
BHUTAN PA C I F I C
See inset below KUWAIT PAKISTAN
ALGERIA JORDAN
BANGLADESH
OCEAN
Tropic of Cancer EGYPT
CUBA SAUDI
ARABIA INDIA
MAURITANIA
20°
HAITI NIGER YEMEN MYANMAR THAILAND
SENEGAL CHAD ERITREA VIETNAM
COSTA RICA SUDAN (BURMA)
PHILIPPINES
GUINEA
SOMALIA
INDIAN
VENEZUELA SRI
PANAMA
SIERRA LEONE CEN.
AFR. REP.
ETHIOPIA OCEAN LANKA
LIBERIA
COLOMBIA
MALAYSIA
CÔTE D’IVOIRE GHANA CAMEROON UGANDA Equator
TOGO 0°
0° RWANDA LEBANON SYRIA
ECUADOR DEM. REP. IRAQ I N D O N E S I A PAPUA
REP. OF CONGO OF THE KENYA
BURUNDI NEW
CONGO TANZANIA GUINEA
WEST
B R A Z I L AT L A N T I C BANK
ANGOLA
OCEAN ZAMBIA
GAZA
STRIP
JORDAN
ZIMBABWE
20° 20°
Tropic of Capricorn ISRAEL
SAUDI
0 1,000 2,000 MILES EGYPT
ARABIA
SOUTH
0 1,000 2,000 KILOMETERS AFRICA

80° 40° 20° 0° 40° 60° 80° 100° 120° 160°

FIGURE 3-2 Major sources and destinations of refugees. A refugee is a person who is forced to migrate
from a country, usually for political reasons. The U.S. Committee for Refugees estimates that the three largest
groups of refugees are Afghans, Palestinians, and Iraqis. The large number of refugees from Afghanistan has
resulted from more than three decades of civil war (see Chapter 8). Palestinians are people who left Israel
after the country was created in 1948, or those who left territories captured by Israel in 1967 (see Chapter 6).
The number of Iraqi refugees increased rapidly after the United States invaded Iraq in 2003 (see Chapter 8).

return for fear of persecution because of their race, religion, Environmental Push and Pull Factors
nationality, membership in a social group, or political opinion.
People also migrate for environmental reasons, pulled
The U.S. Committee for Refugees, a nonprofit organization
toward physically attractive regions and pushed from haz-
independent of the U.S. government (www.refugees.org),
ardous ones. In an age of improved communications and
counted 14 million refugees in 2007 (Figure 3-2). Refugees
transportation systems, people can live in environmentally
have no home until another country agrees to allow them in, or
attractive areas that are relatively remote and still not feel too
improving conditions make possible a return to their former
isolated from employment, shopping, and entertainment
home. In the interim, they must camp out in tents, board in
opportunities.
shelters, or lie down by the side of a road.
Attractive environments for migrants include moun-
Political conditions can also operate as pull factors. People
tains, seasides, and warm climates. Proximity to the Rocky
may be attracted to democratic countries that encourage
Mountains lures Americans to the state of Colorado, and the
individual choice in education, career, and place of resi-
Alps pull French people to eastern France. Some migrants
dence. After Communists gained control of Eastern Europe
are shocked to find polluted air and congestion in these
in the late 1940s, many people in that region were pulled
areas. The southern coast of England, the Mediterranean
toward the democracies in Western Europe and North Amer-
coast of France, and the coasts of Florida attract migrants,
ica. Communist governments in Eastern Europe clamped
especially retirees, who enjoy swimming and lying on the
down on emigration for fear of losing their most able work-
beach. Of all elderly people who migrate from one U.S. state
ers. The most dramatic symbol of restricted emigration was
to another, one-third select Florida as their destination.
the Berlin Wall, which the Communists built to prevent emi-
Regions with warm winters, such as southern Spain and the
gration from Communist-controlled East Berlin into demo-
southwestern United States, attract migrants from harsher
cratic West Berlin.
climates.
With the election of democratic governments in Eastern
Migrants are also pushed from their homes by adverse physi-
Europe during the 1990s, Western Europe’s political pull disap-
cal conditions. Water—either too much or too little—poses the
peared as a migration factor. Eastern Europeans now can visit
most common environmental threat (Figure 3-3). Many people
where they wish, although few have the money to pay for
are forced to move by water-related disasters because they live
travel-related expenses beyond a round-trip bus ticket. How-
in a vulnerable area, such as a floodplain. The floodplain of a
ever, Western Europe pulls an increasing number of migrants
river is the area subject to flooding during a specific number of
from Eastern Europe for economic reasons, as discussed later
years, based on historical trends. People living in the “100-year
in this chapter.
 Chapter 3: Migration 83

A lack of water pushes others from

their land (Figure 3-4). Hundreds of thou-
sands have been forced to move from the
Sahel region of northern Africa because of
drought conditions. The people of the
Sahel have traditionally been pastoral
nomads, a form of agriculture adapted to
dry lands but effective only at low popula-
tion densities (see Chapter 10).
The capacity of the Sahel to sustain
human life—never very high—has
declined recently because of population
growth and several years of unusually low
rainfall. Consequently, many of these
nomads have been forced to move into
cities and rural camps, where they survive
on food donated by the government and
international relief organizations.

Intervening Obstacles
Where migrants go is not always their
FIGURE 3-3 Environmental push factor: Too much water. The widespread flooding in New Orleans and desired destination. The reason is that they
other Gulf Coast communities in 2005 following Hurricane Katrina caused around 1,400 deaths and forced may be blocked by an intervening obstacle,
several hundred thousand people from their homes. Americans watching on television were shocked by the which is an environmental or cultural fea-
plight of residents stranded by the flooding: the squalid conditions in the evacuation centers, the lawlessness ture that hinders migration.
in the streets of New Orleans, and above all the unsatisfactory response of emergency management officials.
In the past, intervening obstacles were
primarily environmental. Bodies of water
have long been important intervening
obstacles. The Atlantic Ocean proved a
particularly significant intervening obsta-
cle for most European immigrants to
North America. Tens of millions of Euro-
peans spent their life savings for the right
to cross the rough and dangerous Atlantic
in the hold of a ship shared with hundreds
of other immigrants.
Before the invention of modern trans-
portation, such as railroads and motor
vehicles, people migrated across land-
masses by horse or on foot. Such migration
was frequently difficult because of hostile
features in the physical environment, such
as mountains and deserts. For example,
many migrants lured to California during
the nineteenth century by the economic
pull factor of the Gold Rush failed to reach
their destination because they could not
cross such intervening obstacles as the
Great Plains, the Rocky Mountains, or
FIGURE 3-4 Environmental push factor: Lack of water. People were pushed from their land in Oklahoma desert country.
and adjacent states during the 1930s by severe drought, known as the Dust Bowl. Thousands of families, Transportation improvements that have
known as Okies, abandoned their farms and migrated 1,000 miles west to California, some on foot. promoted globalization, such as motor
vehicles and airplanes, have diminished
the importance of environmental features
floodplain,” for example, can expect flooding on average once as intervening obstacles. However, today’s migrant faces inter-
every century. Many people are unaware that they live in a vening obstacles created by local diversity in government and
floodplain, and even people who do know often choose to live politics. A migrant needs a passport to legally emigrate from a
there anyway. country and a visa to legally immigrate to a new country.
84 The Cultural Landscape

Distance of Migration
Ravenstein’s theories made two main points about the distance
that migrants travel to their new homes:
• Most migrants relocate a short distance and remain within
the same country.
• Long-distance migrants to other countries head for major
centers of economic activity.

Internal Migration
International migration is permanent movement from one
country to another, whereas internal migration is permanent
movement within the same country. Consistent with the dis-
tance-decay principle presented in Chapter 1, the farther away ANNUAL NET MIGRATION
a place is located, the less likely that people will migrate to it.
Thus, international migrants are much less numerous than 500,000 100,000 10,000
internal migrants.
Most people find migration within a country less traumatic
than international migration because they find familiar language, FIGURE 3-5 Global migration patterns. The major flows of international migrants
are from LDCs to MDCs, especially from Asia and Latin America to North America
foods, broadcasts, literature, music, and other social customs
and from Asia to Europe.
after they move. Moves within a country also generally involve
much shorter distances than those in international migration.
However, internal migration can involve long-distance moves in or seasonal mobility in search of food rather than perma-
large countries, such as in the United States and Russia. nent migration to a new location.
Internal migration can be divided into two types: • A country in stage 2 (high NIR because of rapidly declin-
Interregional migration is movement from one region of a ing CDR) is at the point when international migration
country to another; intraregional migration is movement becomes especially important, as does interregional migra-
within one region. Historically, the main type of interregional tion from one country’s rural areas to its cities. Like the
migration has been from rural to urban areas in search of jobs. sudden decline in the crude death rate, migration patterns
In recent years, some developed countries have seen migration in stage 2 societies are a consequence of technological
from urban to environmentally attractive rural areas. The main change. Improvement in agricultural practices reduces the
type of intraregional migration has been within urban areas, number of people needed in rural areas, and jobs in facto-
from older cities to newer suburbs. ries attract migrants to the cities in another region of the
same country or in another country.
International Migration • Countries in stages 3 and 4 (moderating NIR because of
International migration is further divided into two types: forced rapidly declining CBR) are the principal destinations of the
and voluntary. Voluntary migration implies that the migrant has international migrants leaving the stage 2 countries in
chosen to move for economic improvement, whereas forced search of economic opportunities (Figure 3-5). The princi-
migration means that the migrant has been compelled to move by pal form of internal migration within countries in stages 3
cultural factors. Economic push and pull factors usually induce and 4 of the demographic transition is intraregional, from
voluntary migration, and cultural factors normally compel forced cities to surrounding suburbs.
migration. In one sense, migrants may also feel compelled by
pressure inside themselves to migrate for economic reasons, such
as to search for food or jobs, but they have not been explicitly Characteristics of Migrants
compelled to migrate by the violent actions of other people.
Geographer Wilbur Zelinsky identified a migration transi- Ravenstein noted distinctive gender and family-status patterns
tion, which consists of changes in a society comparable to in his migration theories:
those in the demographic transition. The migration transition
is a change in the migration pattern in a society that results • Most long-distance migrants are male.
from the social and economic changes that also produce the • Most long-distance migrants are adult individuals rather
than families with children.
demographic transition. According to the migration transition,
international migration is primarily a phenomenon of coun-
tries in stage 2 of the demographic transition, whereas internal Gender of Migrants
migration is more important in stages 3 and 4.
Ravenstein theorized that males were more likely than females to
• A country in stage 1 of the demographic transition (high migrate long distances to other countries because searching for
CBR and CDR and low NIR) is characterized by high daily work was the main reason for international migration and males
 Chapter 3: Migration 85

were much more likely than females to be employed. This held However, an increasing percentage of U.S. immigrants are
true for U.S. immigrants during the nineteenth and much of the children—16 percent of immigrants are under age 15, compared
twentieth centuries, when about 55 percent were male. But the to 21 percent for the total U.S. population. With the increase in
gender pattern reversed in the 1990s, and in the twenty-first cen- women migrating to the United States, more children are com-
tury women constitute about 55 percent of U.S. immigrants ing with their mothers.
(Figure 3-6). Recent immigrants to the United States have attended school
Mexicans who come to the United States without authorized for fewer years and are less likely to have high school diplomas
immigration documents—currently the largest group of U.S. than are U.S. citizens. The typical unauthorized Mexican immi-
immigrants—show similar gender changes. As recently as the grant has attended school for four years, less than the average
late 1980s, males constituted 85 percent of the Mexican migrants American but a year more than the average Mexican.
arriving in the United States without proper documents, accord-
ing to U.S. census and immigration service estimates. But since
the 1990s, women have accounted for about half of the unautho-
rized immigrants from Mexico.
KEY ISSUE 2
The increased female migration to the United States partly
reflects the changing role of women in Mexican society. In the Where Are Migrants
past, rural Mexican women were obliged to marry at a young
age and to remain in the village to care for children. Now some Distributed?
Mexican women are migrating to the United States to join hus-
■ Global Migration Patterns
bands or brothers already in the United States, but most are
seeking jobs. At the same time, women also feel increased pres- ■ U.S. Immigration Patterns
sure to get a job in the United States because of poor economic
■ Impact of Immigration on the United States
conditions in Mexico.
About 9 percent of the world’s people are international
Family Status of Migrants migrants—that is, they currently live in countries other
Ravenstein also believed that most long-distance migrants were than the ones in which they were born. The country with
young adults seeking work, rather than children or elderly people. by far the largest number of international migrants is the
For the most part, this pattern continues for the United States. United States. ■

• About 40 percent of immigrants are young adults between

the ages of 25 and 39, compared to about 23 percent of the
entire U.S. population.
Global Migration Patterns
• Immigrants are less likely to be elderly people; only 5 per- At a global scale, Asia, Latin America, and Africa have net
cent of immigrants are over age 65, compared to 12 percent out-migration, and North America, Europe, and Oceania
of the entire U.S. population. have net in-migration. The three largest flows of migrants
are to Europe from Asia and to North
America from Asia and from Latin
America. The global pattern reflects
the importance of migration from
LDCs to MDCs. Migrants from coun-
tries with relatively low incomes and
high natural increase rates head for rel-
atively wealthy countries, where job
prospects are brighter.
The United States has more foreign-
born residents than any other country,
approximately 40 million as of 2010, and
growing annually by around 1 million.
Other MDCs have higher rates of net
in-migration, including Australia and
Canada, which are much less populous
than the United States (Figure 3-7). The
highest rates can be found in petroleum-
exporting countries of the Middle East,
which attract immigrants primarily from
poorer Middle Eastern countries and
from Asia to perform many of the dirty
FIGURE 3-6 Family status of migrants. A Mexican family crosses into the United States near Ciudad Juárez. and dangerous functions in the oil fields.