Migration
Why people move within and between countries, and the impacts of migration on the places they leave and the places they go to.
📌 Key points
- Migration is the movement of people from one place to another to live.
- Internal migration is within a country (e.g. rural-urban migration); international migration is between countries.
- Push factors make people leave a place (e.g. unemployment, poverty, war, drought); pull factors attract people to a place (e.g. jobs, higher wages, schools, hospitals, safety).
- Voluntary migration is by choice, usually for work or a better quality of life; forced migration happens when people have no choice, for example because of war, persecution or natural disasters.
- A refugee is a person forced to leave their country because of war, persecution or disaster; an internally displaced person is forced to move but stays in their own country.
- Rural-urban migration in LICs is driven by a lack of jobs and services in the countryside and the hope of work and better services in cities.
- Impacts on the source area can include a loss of young working-age people (a 'brain drain'), but also remittances (money sent home) and less pressure on resources.
- Impacts on the destination can include filling labour shortages and cultural diversity, but also pressure on housing and services and possible tension between groups.
- Barriers to migration (intervening obstacles) include distance, cost, immigration laws and language.
📖 Key terms
- Migration
- The movement of people from one place to another to live.
- Push factor
- Something that makes people want to leave the place where they live.
- Pull factor
- Something that attracts people to move to a new place.
- Refugee
- A person forced to leave their country because of war, persecution or natural disaster.
- Remittances
- Money sent home by migrants to their families.
- Net migration
- The number of immigrants minus the number of emigrants.
- Rural-urban migration
- The movement of people from the countryside to towns and cities.
✏️ Worked example
In one year 120 000 people move into a country and 85 000 people leave it. Calculate net migration, and suggest one advantage of this migration for the receiving country.
- Net migration = immigrants − emigrants.
- Net migration = 120 000 − 85 000 = +35 000.
- The positive value means a net gain of people through migration.
- Migrants are often young adults of working age, so they can fill labour shortages and pay taxes.
- Answer: net migration = +35 000; an advantage is that migrants fill gaps in the workforce.
Do not mix up push and pull factors: a push factor is about the place people leave, a pull factor is about the place they go to. Use the words 'push' and 'pull' explicitly in your answer.
Test yourself8 questions from a bank of 14. A new mix every time.
Start the quiz →