Migration
Chapter 3
Stories from the Intro
• Boat People
– Where? Why? Results?
• “Wet Foot - Dry Foot”
• Remittance:
– What is it? How Much?
• Legal vs. Illegal
• Globalization
– NAFTA
Key Question:
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
Both involve returning home.
What are their activity spaces?
Who has the largest activity space?
Migration
Migration –
A change in residence
that is intended to
be permanent.
Individual vs. Household…
Little Haiti, Miami, Florida
International Migration –
Movement across country borders (implying a degree of
permanence). Emigrate vs. Immigrate
Internal Migration Movement within a single country’s borders (implying a
degree of permanence).
Common Flows of Americans
• 1900-1980 Black in America South to Northern
cities… Now returning to the South.
• Americans moving to Sunbelt and Far West
• Most Place migration is rural to urban
• Most migrants in poor places move short distance
• Individuals move farther and easier than families
• All Migrations have a counter migration
• Men are more mobile than women (more
employment opportunities for men & earn more)
Choose one type of cyclic or periodic movement
and then think of a specific example of the kind
of movement changes both the home and the
destination. How do these places change as a
result of this cyclic or periodic movement?
Key Question:
Why do People Migrate?
Why do People Migrate?
• Forced Migration – Human migration flows
in which the movers have no choice but to
relocate… Causes?
– Forces = Safety, environmental, starvation, &
warfare
• Big ones in History
– Jews out of Israel, African Slave trade, Trail of
Tears, Vietnamese boat people, Irish Potato
Famine
Forced Migration – the Atlantic Slave Trade
Environmental Conditions –
In Montserrat, a 1995 volcano made the southern half of the
island, including the capital city of Plymouth, uninhabitable.
People who remained migrated to the north or to the U.S.
Why do People Migrate?
• Voluntary Migration – Human migration
flows in which the movers respond to
perceived opportunity, not force.
– Jobs, Freedom
• Migrants weigh push and pull factors to decide first, to
emigrate from the home country and second, where to go.
Types of Push and Pull Factors
• Economic Conditions
• Political Circumstances
• Armed Conflict and Civil War
• Environmental Conditions
• Culture and Traditions
• Technological Advances
Economic Conditions –
Migrants will often risk their lives in hopes of economic
opportunities that will enable them to send money home
(remittances) to their family members who remain behind.
Kinds of Voluntary Migration
• Step Migration –
When a migrant follows a path of 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 –
When a migrant communicates to family and friends at
home, encouraging further migration along the same
path, along kinship links.
Voluntary Migration –
Migrants weigh push and pull factors to decide first, to
emigrate from the home country and second, where to go.
Distance
Decay weighs
into the decision
to migrate,
leading many
migrants to
move less far
than they
originally
contemplate.
Gravity Model
Ernst Ravenstien
• Since larger places attract people, ideas, and
commodities more than smaller places and places
closer together have a greater attraction, the
gravity model incorporates these two features.
• The relative strength of a bond between two places
is determined by multiplying the population of city
A by the population of city B and then dividing the
product by the distance between the two cities
squared.
Gravity Model
Ernst Ravenstien
• Gravity Model Equation
Population 1 X Population 2
Distance Squared
Laws of Migration
Ernst Ravenstien
• http://www.slideshare.net/geographyallthe
way/geography-ravensteins-laws-ofmigration
Think about a migration flow within your family,
whether internal, international, voluntary, or
forced. The flow can be one you experienced or
one you only heard about through family. List
the push and pull factors. Then, write a letter in
the first person (if you were not involved, pretend
you were your grandmother or whomever) to
another family member at “home” describing
how you came to migrate to your destination.
Key Question:
Where do People Migrate?
Global Migration Flows
• Between 1500 and 1950, major global
migration flows were influenced largely by:
– Exploration
– Colonization
– The Atlantic Slave Trade
• Impacts the place the migrants leave and
where the migrants go.
Major Global Migration Flows
From 1500 to 1950
Regional Migration Flows
• Migrants go to neighboring countries:
- for short term economic opportunities.
(Remittance)
- to reconnect with cultural groups
across borders.
- to flee political conflict or war.
Economic
Opportunities
Islands of
Development –
Places within a
region or country
where foreign
investment, jobs,
and infrastructure
are concentrated.
Why is it so expensive to start businesses in Africa?
Economic
Opportunities
In late 1800s and
early 1900s,
Chinese migrated
throughout
Southeast Asia to
work in trade,
commerce, and
finance.
Huge Chinese Minorities in
SE Asia: Thai. 14%, Malay.
32%, Sing. 76%
Reconnecting Cultural
Groups
About 700,000 Jews
migrated to then-Palestine
between 1900 and 1948.
Balfour Declaration, 1917
After 1948, when the land
was divided into two states
(Israel and Palestine),
600,000 Palestinian Arabs
fled or were pushed out of
newly-designated Israeli
territories.
Jerusalem, Israel: Jewish settlements on the West Bank.
National Migration Flows
• Also known as internal migration
- eg. US, Russia, Mexico
Why is the center of the US population moving W & S?
Guest Workers
• Guest workers – migrants whom a country
allows in 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
A person who flees across an international boundary because of a wellfounded fear of being persecuted for reasons of race, religion,
nationality, membership of a particular social group, or political opinion.
Regions of Dislocation – (DP’s)
What regions generate the most refugees?
• Subsaharan Africa (Rwanda)
• North Africa and Southwest Asia (Sudan &
Somalia, Afghanistan))
• South Asia (India, Sri Lanka)
• Southeast Asia (Myanmar, Cambodia,
Vietnam)
• Europe (Yugoslav Republics)
What are the characteristics of a Refugee?
The Sudan –
Fighting in the Darfur region of the Sudan has generated thousands of
refugees. In eastern Chad, the Iridimi refugee camp is home to almost 15,000
refugees from the Darfur province, including the women in this photo.
Imagine you are from an extremely poor country,
and you earn less than $1 a day. Choose a
country to be from, and look for it on a map.
Assume you are a voluntary migrant. You look at
your access to transportation and the
opportunities you have to go elsewhere. Be
realistic, and describe how you determine where
you will go, how you get there, and what you do
once you get there.
Key Question:
How do Governments Affect
Migration?
Governments Place
Legal Restrictions on Migration
• Immigration laws – laws that restrict or
allow migration of certain groups into a
country.
– Quotas limit the number of migrants from each
region into a country.
– A country uses selective immigration to bar
people with certain backgrounds from entering.
Why do countries chooses to limit immigration?
1850-1900
Port. Sp. It.
Rus. & Pol
Post WWII Isolationism
18001850
Scan
Ire, Ger.,
& GB
Great Depression
Potato Famine
Waves of Immigration
Switch
from
Europe to
Lat AM.,
Asia &
Africa
Changing immigration laws, and changing push and pull
factors create waves of immigration.
Post-September 11
One goal of international organizations involved
in aiding refugees is repatriation – return of the
refugees to their home countries once the threat
against them has passed. Take the example of
Sudanese refugees. Think about how their land
and their lives have changed since they became
refugees. You are assigned the daunting task of
repatriating Sudanese from Uganda once a
peace solution is reached. What steps would you
have to take to re-discover a home for these
refugees?