MIGRATION

Reasons people migrate:

Political factors: armed conflict, religious intolerance, oppressive regimes, forced migration

Economic factors: job opportunities, cycles of growth and recession

Cost of living:

Europeans moved to NE America for opportunity, their descendents are now moving to the west and south seeking jobs and inexpensive living. Retirees heading South and Southwest.

Migration isn’t simply from countries, it includes movement within a country.

Cultural issues: people want to be near people they feel comfortable around (chain migration.) This is true within a city, country, or between continents.

Why was there a major increase in immigration beginning in the 16th and 17th centuries?

Intervening opportunities/obstacles

Better ships and navigation methods (technology) allowed people to travel great distances by water. Empowered many to leave Europe for the Americas.

In the USA, once they passed over the Appalachians, river transport provided a means to move west.

In the 1800’s stagecoach, wagons, and eventually trains facilitated peoples ability to move.

Changing modes of transportation continue to provide “intervening opportunities” for migration.

Push and Pull Factors

Push: factors that make a person or group leave a country.

Pull: factors that draw migrants to another country.

Education, opportunity, jobs, safety

Forced migration: people literally forced to move from their home for political or environmental reasons.

Volcanoes, earthquakes, hurricanes

Refugees: people who flee in fear of persecution or for their lives.

Refugees generally flee for political reasons.

Violence against Christians in Iraq

Which continent today has the most refugees?

Voluntary migration: People move by their own choice for better living conditions, economic reasons, better climate, retirement.Types of migration:

Inter-regional Intra-regional

Intra-ContinentalInter-continental

Internal migration: blacks to the North moved after WWI for jobs.

Today, middle class moving from Rustbelt to Sunbelt for jobs.

The migration trend in the WORLD is from rural to urban.

People are moving to cities in search of jobs in LDC’s. Few find those jobs and end up in slums around the periphery.

Dharavi (Mumbai), India

Most major LDC cities are have slum areas on the outskirts. Often called “squatter settlements.”

In LDC’s, large numbers of people leave the countryside to look for work in the cities.

Since they have little money, they have to find any place available to live.

Tens of thousands of people may live in squalid conditions on land no one want. These area lack sanitation, electricity, police protection.

GUEST WORKERS

What would push and pull factors be?

What are guest workers and where are they migrating from and to?

What affect do they have on their host and home countries?

While many guest workers still go to Europe, the largest numbers are in the Middle East.

Home: Remittances, ease unemployment

Destination: cheap labor, fill jobs openings

Changing demographics in the USA due to migration.

Demographics of the USA is changing dramatically and quickly due to immigration (and immigration birthrates) from Latin America.

The black population has remained relatively constant, around 14% of the population.

The population center of the USA has moved steadily west and is now turning south.

This has created a shift in the balance of political power. The South “West” has changed into a largely Republican region, the Northeast and Great Lakes area Democrat. Why have Democrats taken power in California and far south Texas?

2010 election Senate/House of Rep’s

IMMIGRANT FLOWS TO THE USA

1600 AND 1700’S: Northern and Western Europe

1840’s and 1850’s: Irish and Germans

Number diminished during and after the war (s)

1890’s to 1914: Southern and Eastern Europe (Italy, Greece, Russia)

Gateway Cities: New York, San Francisco, Galveston, Miami

1970’s and 80’s: Asians

1980’s to today - HispanicsChain Migration -

Chain Migration – people migrate to areas where people like themselves already live.

Many immigrants to the USA were farmers and sought familiar climates (latitudes) in order to grow similar crops.

Largest impelled (imposed) migration in history:

Hindus to India and Muslims to Pakistan after the independence and partition of India and Pakistan.

Migration of Vietnamese “boat people” after the fall of South Vietnam to communist North Vietnam in 1975.

Large scale migrations can leave the home country lacking due to “brain drain.”

In migration: people moving into city, region, country.

Out migration: people moving out of a city, region, country.

What is the “intervening opportunity” that people from Latin America enjoy that Africans can’t take advantage of?

Out migration generally occurs in this stage of the DTM.

Stage II due to over population. LDC’s to MDC’s today.

Name the 18th and 19th century occurrence that set in motion one of the largest rural to urban migrations in history.

Industrial Revolution

Ravenstein's Laws of Migration

1. Most migrants travel only short distances, towards centers of absorption (large cities where jobs may be found)

2. Most long distance migrants are male.

3. Migrants traveling long distances move to large industrial centers.

4. More migration is found where there are more transportation opportunities.

5. Most migrants move “step by step” or, step migration.

The best solution to illegal immigration is to:

Make jobs available in the home country.

Maquiladora Plants, Northern Mexico