Introduction to Migration
UNIT 2: POPULATION & MIGRATION
LEARNING TARGETS
• Identify forms of Short Term
Movements
• Define Migration and its
objectives
• Compare Net-In and Net-Out
Migration
• Identify forms of Migration
Selectivity
• Compare Internal and
International Migration
• Explain Ravenstein’s Laws of
Migration
• Define Step and Chain
Migration
• Discuss Zelinsky’s Migration
Transition Model
SESSION 5
Introduction to Migration
• Others include:
• Cyclic Movement: Your daily routine from your home and back
• Ex. Commute to work
• Seasonal Movement: Form of cyclic movement where you move
from one place to another due to change in season
• Ex. Snowbirds or some forms of nomadism
• Periodic Movement: Involves longer periods of stay
• Ex. Going to college or serving in the military
• Transhumance: Pastoral farming practice of moving animals from
hillsides to pastures…is both periodic and seasonal
• Ex. Semi-nomadic herders
Short Term Movement
• The key to migration is understanding the motivations for
people’s movement either in the short or long term. The most
basic form of movement is activity space or where you
travel on a daily basis.
• Emigration: migration from a location
• Immigration: migration to a location
• Migration Stream: pathway from a place of
origin to a destination
• Migration counter-stream: pathway of people
moving back to the place of origin from the new
place.
• 3 objectives of migration:
• Economic Opportunity
• Cultural Freedom
• Environmental Comfort
Introduction to Migration
• Migration: permanent movement to a new
location – cross boundary between states,
countries, cities, etc.
Session
5
Net Out
• Net In-Migration: More immigrants than emigrants
• Net Out-Migration: More emigrants than immigrants
• Worldwide number of migrants has increased historically as
travel has improved
• Immigrants from LDCs form an increasingly large proportion of many MDCs
population
Net-In/Net Out Migration
Net In
Net-In/Net Out Migration
Net-In/Net Out Migration
Determining Factors
• The decision to migrate fits into a predictable pattern based on
various factors including age, income, and other socioeconomic
factors…i.e. Push/Pull Factors
• Migration Selectivity: The evaluation of how likely someone is to
migrate based on personal, social and economic factors
Education: Typically, the more educated people are, the more
likely they are to make a long distance move (this can happen both
internally or internationally) and can lead to Brain Drain.
Place Desirability: Possession of positive features making
people want to live there
Age Structure: Is the population one that is young
enough…old people tend not to migrate in huge numbers
Friction of Distance: How difficult is it migrate to a certain
location
Gravity Model: Asserts that closer places attract more
migrants than more distant places…distance decay
Migration Selectivity
Economic Structure: People will migrate based their own
economic condition compared to that of another region and
determine the risk/reward
What is activity space and the other forms of short term
movement? What is migration stream? What is migration
counter-stream? What is the difference between an
immigrant and an emigrant?
What are the main objectives of migration? What is netin migration? What is net-out migration?
What factors are included with Migration Selectivity?
What is the Gravity Model? Friction of Distance? What
role does age play in migration?
Check for Understanding: Student Discussion
Internal Migration
• A permanent move from one
country or another…also
known as transnational
migration
• A permanent move within the
same country
• Can be interregional (one
region to another) or
intraregional (within the
same region i.e. rural to city)
• Recent patterns today include
• Can be either voluntary or
forced
• Recent patterns today include
• From Asia to Europe
• From Asia to N. America
• From Latin America to N.
America
• From Rural to City (LDC’s)
• From City to Suburbs (MDC’s)
• From weak economic to affluent
(Rust Belt to Sun Belt)
• Retirement (Florida/Arizona)
Distance of Migration
International Migration
• Most migrants travel short distances…i.e. step migration,
or due to intervening obstacles (barriers to migration)
• Migrants who are traveling a long way tend to move to
larger cities than smaller cities
• Rural residents are more likely to migrate than are urban
residents
• Families are less likely to migrate across national borders
than are young adults…leads to chain migration
• Every migrations stream creates a counter-stream
Ravenstein’s Migration Laws
Ernst Ravenstein, a 19th century British
geographer identified generalizations about
migration
3 4
1
Chain Migration
• Step Migration
• A migrant has a long-distance
goal in mind and achieves it in a
series of steps
• Ex. My family’s trip from India via
England, Chicago and eventually
Kingston, R.I.
• Chain Migration
• When people migrate to be with
others that migrated before them
because of a family or cultural
tie.
• Ex. Europeans to New York City
and other east coast cities
Patterns of Migration
Step Migration 2
• The MTM shows a change in the migration pattern in a society
that results from the social and economic changes that also
produce demographic transition
Stage
Demographic Transition
Migration Transition
1
Low NIR, high CBR, high CDR
High daily or seasonal mobility in
search of food
2
High NIR, high CBR, rapidly declining
CDR
High international emigration
and interregional migration from
rural to urban
3
Declining NIR, rapidly declining CBR,
declining CDR
High international immigration
and intraregional migration from
cities to suburbs
4
Low NIR, low CBR, low CDR
Same as stage 3
Zelinsky’s Migration Transition
• Geographer Wilbur Zelinsky identified a Migration Transition
Model (MTM), which consists of changes in a society comparable
to those in the demographic transition model (DTM).
NEXT CLASS
SESSION 6
Factors of Migration