MIGRATION

THEME 1

MIGRATION

Migration is the movement / the mobility of population from one place to another for a period of a year or more.
There must be an intention to settle for a purpose at the destination. Therefore, movements involving tourism or
seasonal labour are called circulation. Specific movements that cannot constitute migration include the
following:
 There is the daily movement for work, school or shopping. This is called commuting.
 There is the continuous drifting of nomadic pastoralists of the Sahel region in Africa seeking pasture or
shifting cultivators in the Equatorial rainforest. In these two, migration is embodied as a part of their
culture and is done almost unconsciously.
 There is the seasonal movement for tourism and hospitality related jobs during Summer or Winter
breakaways.
 Then there are the weekend travels to weekend cottages and public holidays.

International migration is the movement from one country to another. E.g …….. The distance is usually long
and people migrate for employment / education. Air travel is preferred but quite expensive.
Movement within one country is called internal migration. Distance is usually shorter. The volume of migrants
is high over short distances. Some may travel on foot and even speak the language in the next country. There
are however some huge countries like the USA where a frost bitten ‘Yankee’ may migrate to a warmer climate
south ward in Florida.
The Causes of Migration

Push factors / involuntary migration

 Exist in the source / sending area

 Involuntary migration means one’s life is under threat / death is imminent. Migration is thus forced. If the
push factor is not life threatening, it is called impelled migration
 E.g wars, famine, floods, earthquakes

Pull factors / voluntary migration

 Pull factors attract people because they are pleasant / good things. In most cases a bigger city or
wealthier country has a bigger pull factor.
 E.g employment, university, fertile soils

Study Tip
 Distance is an important factor in migration and may cause migrants particularly
 People less prepared to travel (forced migrants) usually cause more problems in the receiving region.
Others are illegal and arrive on a one way ticket.

Terms to remember

 Push factors –forced, repel, danger / unpleasant, bad, negative

 Pull factors – attractive, pleasant, good, positive

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Patterns of migration

1. Rural – urban migration

Rural-urban migration is common in most LEDCs. It involves youthful population, usually males
moving to the cities to seek employment.
Causes of rural – urban migration
Push factors
 Natural disasters e.g drought, floods, volcanoes
 Hard labour
 Soil exhaustion and erosion
 Mechanisation on farms leading to job losses
 Too many people on one farm
 Strict, moribund culture e.g strict dress code
 Social misfits
 War
 Political persecution
 Poverty

Pull factors

 Better employment
 ‘bright lights’
 Better employment
 Better social services e.g schools, hospitals
 Higher education / university
 Medical help from specialists
 Family reunification
 Safety and stability
 Gender equality
 Large sport, music, social events

Study tip

Unfortunately, the lights are not always bright in the city or the grass greener on the other side. Some
arrive at the destination region poorly prepared to stack a claim in the commercial world or there are
simply too many people chasing the same job. Youths end up jobless, without shelter or food and
victims to crime and human trafficking.

Challenge
If you were to relocate to a new country for tertiary education, where would you obtain useful information about
that country

Internal Migration – Rural-urban migration

Effects / results of rural-urban migration

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RURAL AREAS (source region) URBAN AREAS (receiving region)

 Production and development falls  Available of large labour pool

 ‘ghost towns’  Pressure on social services e.g clinics, water,
 Age imbalance (mostly old and children) sewage
 Child abuse  Traffic congestion
 Sex imbalance (mostly women)  Unemployment
 Sparse settlements (loneliness, poor security)  Crime
 Less attention from government  Age imbalance (mostly males)
 Benefit from repatriation of money from city  Social ills like prostitution
 Frees land to enable consolidation and  Pollution (land, air, noise)
mechanisation  Overcrowding
 Easy spread of diseases
 Emergence of squatter camps
 High risk of fires
 HIV infections
 Clashing cultural norms
 Better health and education

Study Tip

 Consequences of migration should be separated as Positive (sending and receiving region) and
Negative (sending and receiving region)
 Migrants usually arrive in the squatter camps, then move into better places depending on their fortunes

Key Points

Strategies to address the effects of rural depopulation

 New ruralism is a new plan to preserve rural areas in their pristine state and offer peace, space,
privacy and ‘air to breathe’. This will in turn attract urban people tired of congestion, pollution and
crime. They can work from their homes using improvements in IT. It is already occurring in MEDCs. It
leads to renewed economic growth in rural areas.
 Diversification of activities in rural areas
 Ecotourism
 Crafts and cultural village
 Lodges
 Farming
 Adventure activities
 Lakes (water sport, fishing)
 Improve electricity, roads, reticulated water, network coverage
 Skills training for rural population
 Decentralise industry

Points of Entry into the city (informal accommodation for new arrivals)

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In this discussion we focus on the first residency a person takes upon arrival in a big city. Most
rural – urban migration arrivals are not well prepared for life in the city; the ones who come on a
one-way ticket. They end up in the squatter settlements most of the time. Accommodation there is
cheap and simple. One can even build his own from local materials like cardboard boxes, plastic,
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Should Government Allow Internal Migration

There are good reasons for either allowing free flowing migration or not. Here are some arguments for
not allowing internal migration:
 Some areas become overcrowded and overpopulated that it is difficult to provide social services
e.g. urban areas
 Other areas are left with very little population as to become unproductive
 Government considers impact on natural environment e.g. nomadic pastorals in East Africa
sometimes cross paths with wild animals leading to transfer of diseases and also poisoning of
lions which prey on cattle
Reasons for allowing migration
 Free movement is a basic human right
 Population should be free to leave areas they are not comfortable in
 Resettling people opens up new areas to be used more productively e.g. for commercial
farming, forestry, national parks, dams
Government cannot take the unpopular decision to enact a law barring free movement of population in
a country except of course where one could end up on private property. They rather use incentives to
regulate movement towards or away from certain areas.
Video links:
https://youtube.com/watch?v=1NwkEGls1EE (Difference between internal and international migration)

Key Points
 Brain drain is when a country loses skilled workers to another country

Study Tip
 Illegal migrants cannot afford costs related with documentation in the host / source country or they want
to offer cheap labour there
Challenge
 How do illegal migrants cross borders
1. Do you feel a person should be allowed to enter into a country with his / her entire family?

Assignment
1. Comparing the economies of USA and Mexico as well as their geographical position, suggest reasons
why there is a large movement of migrants between the two countries.
2. Suggest two other close countries with a large number of migrants between them giving reasons.

The Impact of International Migration

Video links:
https://youtube.com/watch?v=PlkA2JqGYOk (Impact of Migration)

Key Points

Impact of international migration

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SOURCE COUNTRY RECEIVING COUNTRY

ADVANTAGES  Relieves population pressure and  Skilled workers fill up the void left by
unemployment ageing population and low birth rate
 Reduces pressure on national  Illegal migrants do the dirty jobs
economy locals shun (3D jobs are dirty,
 Repatriation of money and goods dangerous & difficult))
 Opens up passage for others to  Illegal migrants are cheap and work
follow (chain migration) hence hard
access to better education, health  Cultural diversity such as music,
clothes and food
DISADVANTAGES  Brain drain  Migrants may experience abuse and
 The family members left alone discrimination
carry a heavier burden of  Some gullible migrants may turn to
maintaining the family crime to make means meet
 Human trafficking may result  Prostitution
where movement is heavy  Stereotyping
 Returning migrants being richer  Pressure on local services such as
upon their return behave schools and health services
differently and cause friction  There may be a surge of migrants
 There may help spread of disease arriving by trucks or train that
such as HIV overwhelm the host community
 Migrants may never return /  Migrants may bring diseases which
perish they carry for long since they cannot
access social support services
 Xenophobia
 Fuels political opposition

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Introduction: What is the carrying capacity of the host population

Key Points
 Xenophobic
 Sympathy
Study Tip
 To understand the relationship between host and guest we need to profile both and see how much each
may tolerate the other
Challenge
 How is stereotyping negative to immigrants

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