Chapter 3: Migration most people migrate in search of three objectives: economic opportunity, cultural freedom, and environmental comfort emigrant vs. immigration
Key issue 1 Why do people migrate? push factor = out pull factor = in three major kinds of push and pull factors: economic, cultural, and environmental
economic: most people migrate for economic reasons looking for jobs, better opportunities, etc.
cultural forced international migration historically: slavery and political instability forced migration today is usually in the form of refugees (estimates are as many as 14 million worldwide) freedom and democracy very strong pull factors in many parts of the world
environmental attractive areas like beaches, mountains, warm weather, etc. are strong factors water either too much or too little poses the most common environmental threat (such as living in a floodplain)
intervening obstacles, environmental or cultural features that hinder migration, influence where migrants have traditionally moved traditional obstacles included oceans, seas, deserts, mountains, etc. modern obstacles usually more related to government, politics, and local diversity attitudes
Internal migration: permanent movement within the same country Interregional is from one region of a country to another (historically form rural to urban areas looking for jobs) Intraregional is movement with one region (mainly from older cities to newer suburbs)
- voluntary vs. forced - more common from countries is stage 2 of the demographic transition - likely to be male - usually younger and single International migration
Key issue 2 Where are migrants distributed? - net out-migration = Asia, Latin America, and Africa - net in-migration = North America, Europe, and Oceania The three largest flows of migrants are to Europe from Asia and to North America from Asia and from Latin America. (Reflecting patterns mainly from LDCs to MDCs) 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
U.S. immigration patterns (75 million people migrated to the United States between 1820 and 2010) Colonial immigration: - 1607 to 1840 - ninety percent of European immigrants from Great Britain (mostly voluntary migration) - hundreds of thousands slaves brought over from Africa (forced migration not their choice)
Nineteenth-Century immigration from Europe 1840s and 1850s = Ireland and Germany 1870s = Western Europe 1880s = Scandinavia 1900 1914 = Southern and Eastern Europe Among European countries, Germany has sent the largest number of immigrants to the United States, 7.2 million
Recent immigration from less developed regions Asia (China, India and the Philippines) Latin America (officially, Mexico passed Germany in 2006 as the country that has sent to the United States the most immigrants ever)
Impact of immigration on the United States: - legacy of European migration (language, religion, culture, etc.) - Unauthorized immigration (unauthorized/undocumented immigrants) - Destination of immigrants in U.S. (1/5 th in California, 1/6 th in New York area chain migration)
Key issue 3 Why do migrants face obstacles? U.S. quota laws established in the early 1920s Immigration Act of 1965 replaced country quotas with hemisphere quotas Quotas do not apply to refugees or to spouses, children, and parents of U.S. citizens. Why?
citizens of poor countries who obtain jobs in Western Europe and the Middle East are known as guest workers Economic migrants vs. refugees 25,000 immigrants a year to the U.S.in recent decades from Cuba, Haiti, and Vietnam Local attitudes towards immigrants and guest workers (how are they treated in the U.S.?)
Colonial settlement: the first U.S. census in 1790 had population center in the Chesapeake Bay. The colonists stayed close to the coast for supplies, safety and obstacles like the Appalachian mountains Key issue 4 Why do people migrate within a country?
Early settlement in the interior in the 1800s due to the opening of canals (especially the Erie Canal). By 1840 the U.S. had over 3,300 miles of canals and the population center had moved to West Virginia
Migration to California By 1890 the population center was in Indiana (skipping the Great Plains) thanks to the California Gold Rush, beginning in the late 1840s, that pulled thousands of people to California and the coast instead of the interior of the United States
settlement of the Great Plains Westward movement of the population center slowed in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries due to large scale immigration to the East Coast from Europe and more people settling in the Great Plains The expansion of railroads and federal land grants to help finance them encourage settlement of the Great Plains and U.S. interior
recent growth of the South Americans migrated south primarily for job opportunities and environmental conditions to enjoy the sunbelt from 1940 2000 the population center moved west and south to central Missouri Interregional migration has slowed to close to zero in the twenty-first century
Migration between regions in other countries Russia = Far North Brazil = Brasìlia Indonesia = smaller islands Europe, India, etc. many migrated voluntarily for economic or environmental reasons, some due to government incentives
movement within the same region is intraregional migration worldwide, most intraregional migration is from rural areas to urban areas- as much as 20 million people per year Today, about three-fourths of the people in MDCs live in urban areas
In the United States, and most MDCs, the principal intraregional migration is from cities to suburbs. Why? MDCs witnessed a new migration trend during the late twentieth century. For the first time, more people immigrated into rural areas than emigrated out of them called counterurbanization- due to better communication, transportation, and other pull factors from the rural areas.
All photos: Sean Simons