AP Human Geo Chapter 5
Chapter 5 - Migration
5.1 Why do People Migrate?
Mobility: All types of movement from one location to another no matter the period of time or distance.
Circulation: Temporary repetitive movements that recur on a regular basis
Short Distance: walking a few blocks or riding the bus to school every day
Long distance: movement like farm workers traveling thousands of miles.
This is known as human migration.
Emigration: movement away from a location
Immigration: movement to a location
Net Migration: The difference between the number of emigrants and immigrants in a location such as a city or a country
Long-distance migrations can be dangerous, time consuming, and physically or mentally demanding. People—young, old, weak, strong, entire families—die trying to migrate.
Ravenstein concluded that economic conditions push and pull people in predictable directions. He also noticed that population size and distance affect migration.
Ravenstein’s thinking laid the groundwork for the gravity model , which geographers derived from Newton’s law of universal gravitation in order to predict the interaction between two or more places.
GRAVITY MODEL
The model suggests that as the population of a city increases, migration to the city increases, and as the distance to a city grows, migration to that city decreases.
Factors like: environmental, demographic, cultural factors, economic conditions, and political conditions also drive migration.
Push Factor: Negative causes compels someone to leave their location such as political violence or economic upheaval.
Pull Factor: Positive cause that attracts someone to a new location: stable government, safe neighborhoods, and plentiful job opportunities are all pull factors.
Technology has transformed migration in recent years in both positive and negative ways.
Positive: Syrians who fled their country use cell phones to maintain contact with people back home and to convey what is happening in their destination country.
Negative: misinformation on the internet and the distrust that can result is problematic for finding safe passages and knowing who to rely on in a new community.
Economic Factors: Stable employment and higher wages are enticing economic pull factors that affect many populations, such as recent college graduates searching for career-starting opportunities and laborers looking for seasonal and permanent work in other countries.
Economic conditions are sometimes push factors. Job loss and the lack of employment opportunities force people to look elsewhere for work. The global recession of 2008 greatly affected migration around the world.
Cultural reasons for migration are often push factors involving discrimination, persecution, and political instability resulting from cultural diversity. Lack of religious freedom, racism, and unequal treatment have driven humans from their homelands for centuries.
Gender roles and discrimination also affect migration. Since most people move for economic reasons, gender roles in terms of earning potential and responsibility for the family often determine who will migrate.
Demographics—the characteristics of a population such as age, education level, and geographic location—often play a role in migration. For example, some people located in rural communities migrate because of lack of access to health care.
For example, some people located in rural communities migrate because of lack of access to health care.
Environmental Conditions such as a large storm like Hurricane Katrina or the Indian Ocean Tsunami leads to mass migration due to millions being displaced.
5.2 Types of Migration
Voluntary migration: People make the choice to migrate
Forced Migration: People are compelled to migrate due to economic, political, environmental, or cultural factors. Some may even be forced such as during slavery.
It often requires immigrants to travel long distances under difficult conditions, to seek permission to enter the destination country, and once they’ve arrived, to attempt to adapt to the culture—the language, customs, and indeed, every aspect of life in a new country.
The United States hosts the largest number of immigrants (50 million in 2017), followed by countries such as Germany and Russia. The countries losing the most emigrants are India, Mexico, Russia, China, Bangladesh, Syria, Pakistan, and Ukraine. The single largest flow of immigrants from one country to another is from Mexico to the United States.
Majority of foreign born residents in the UNited States come from Latin America (mainly Mexico) though the fastest-growing group of immigrants come from Asia.
Countries of the periphery and semi-periphery immigrate to countries in the core (stronger economies and therefore more money opportunity)
Transnational Migration: immigrants to a new country retain strong cultural, emotional, and financial ties to their country of origin and may regularly return for visits.
Transnational Migrants live in two cultures and two countries at once. They help their family at home with their job in a core country.
Internal Migration: Migration within a country’s borders (like moving from Maryland to Virginia)
Ravenstein’s laws, which state that most migration occurs over short distances.
Moving short distances is easier than long distances because of: friction of distance, a concept that states the longer a journey is the more time, effort, and cost it will involve.
Towns that are close together tend to be similar because of this.
Factors such as language, customs, and climate can present difficult hurdles for international migrants.
Internal voluntary migrations often happen in waves or patterns. During WW2, Americans moved in large numbers from the Northeast and Midwest to the South and Southwest (sunbelt region) because of cheaper taxes and business opportunities.
So many people and companies made the migration to the Sunbelt that by 1962, California had become the most populous state in the country.
Internal voluntary migrations arise from long tradition. This is known as transhumance.
Transhumance: form of migration practiced by nomads who move herds between pastures at cooler, higher elevations during the summer and lower elevations during the winter.
Transhumance is internal migration unless nomads cross national borders during seasonal movements.
Chain Migration: a social process where immigrants from the same area follow each other to a new destination.
Once immigrants have established themselves, they share information about their new home with people from their place of origin. Family members, friends, or other members of the community often follow in their footsteps.
Basically, people want to be with people similar to them. Immigrants who follow others to a new location usually have similar reasons for leaving their home country, and they have an added pull factor—their way has been eased by those who arrived before In the 1840s, nearly half of all immigrants to the United States were from Ireland
Step Migration: a process in which individuals move from one location to another in a series of smaller, progressive steps rather than making one large move.
Example: when migrants plan to move from a rural farm to a big city but end up living for a time in villages along the way. This is a small step to get to the ultimate destination.
Step Migration is done because migrates may not have the financial resources to take the entire journey straight.
environmental or cultural features that prevent or make it difficult for people to migrate to a new destination is called an intervening obstacle
a place that can persuade a migrant to settle in a new location instead of their originally planned destination is called an intervening opportunity
Urban areas give more jobs and education opportunities, in addition to greater access to health care. Some of the challenges brought about by urbanization include poverty and inequality, giving rise to difficult conditions for the poor.
Guest Workers: Migrants who travel to a new country as temporary laborers
Guest worker jobs are created when citizens cannot fill in the slots needed for a job. For instance, after World War II, West Germany needed young workers to fill its factories and mines due to a post-war economic boom. The government brought in millions of Turkish workers to help rebuild the country’s infrastructure.
Guest workers are motivated by the opportunity to make more money and support their families.
Circular Migration: A repetition of legal migration by the same person between two or more countries. For example:
When migrant workers move back and forth between their country of origin and the destination country where they work temporary jobs The money workers earn in the destination countries may have greater purchasing power in their home countries, where prices are lower, hence why they do it.
People grow attached to where they live.
Refugees: people who are forced to leave their country for fear of persecution or death. Refugees may be granted special status when they attempt to migrate. They also have the right to request asylum.
Asylum: Protection in the country a refugee migrates from being deported.
Internally Displaced Persons: people who have been forced to flee their homes but remain within their country’s borders. These people are most likely people who are running from conflict or evacuating their homes because of a natural disaster.
The largest forced migration in history was the transatlantic slave trade. From the 16th to the 19th centuries, between 10 and 12 million men, women, and children were transported from Africa to the Americas.
Human trafficking: is defined by the United Nations as “the recruitment, transportation, harboring, or receipt of persons by improper means (such as force, abduction, fraud, or coercion).”
Victims are often illegally sold into forced labor, domestic servitude, and sexual exploitation. Human trafficking is a form of modern-day slavery, and according to the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, millions of people are trafficked around the world each year, including within the United States.
Trackers target vulnerable people such as people in poverty.
Despite the terms’ clear definitions, it can at times be difficult to distinguish between voluntary and forced migration.
Consider the example of the Irish who immigrated to the United States in the 1800s. The emigrants who left Ireland during the Potato Famine of 1845–1849 were forced out by starvation, but the wave of Irish migration had actually begun earlier, in the 1820s. The country was under colonial rule by the British, and until 1829, Irish Catholics were prohibited from owning land, carrying weapons, and voting. In addition, the Industrial Revolution that swept England beginning in the mid-1700s left Ireland behind. The smaller country’s agricultural economy and real estate values suffered, leaving the Irish even poorer.
350,000 central american immigrants live in the United States in 1980 compared to 3.4 million in 2015
42% of people apprehended at the U.S. southern border in 2016 came from the Northern Triangle (El salvador, honduras, belize, and guatemala)
5.3 Refugees and Internally Displaced Persons
IDPS
Migrants who remain in the home country are known as internally displaced persons (IDPs).
They must rely on the help of others and may be forced to pay to be smuggled to safety or over borders. They must also navigate the natural obstacles of unknown topography and weather conditions.
Today, refugees can seek asylum in any of the 145 countries that have ratified the 1951 Refugee Convention
Official refugee status must be granted by the country providing asylum or by an international agency. Obtaining refugee status can be a long and difficult process. Especially when refugees have little documentation. Once an asylum seeker is approved for refugee status, the host country is expected to provide civil rights, the right to work, and access to social services
The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), established in 1950, continues to be an international resource for refugees and countries offering asylum.
In recent years, the number of refugees has reached record highs, and fewer refugees have been able to return to their home country—or repatriate —due to ongoing conflicts.
Repatriate: for someone to go back to their own country or for someone to send them
Stories of refugees making dangerous sea crossing or land travels have gone viral, but the struggle of IDPs has not.
Therefore, despite the fact that there are significantly more IDPs than refugees in the world—about 15 million more in 2018—the refugee crisis is more well-known and better understood.
40 MILLION internally displaced people (IDPs) worldwide
25.4 MILLION refugees worldwide
3.1 MILLION ASYLUM SEEKERS
While refugees rely on the protection of a foreign government for their safety,
IDPs remain under the laws of their own government. Sometimes, however, the government is involved in the conflict the IDPs are attempting to flee and are unable or unwilling to provide protection.
Climate Refugees
Scientists predict that in the coming years, many people living in coastal areas will be forced to move due to rising sea levels. Increasing temperatures are already diminishing agricultural production in some areas, while rising sea levels are taking some farmland out of production.
Climate change creates new patterns of displacement.
Syrian Civil War:
6.6 millionSyrians internally displaced as of 2018
5.6 millionSyrians registered as refugees as of 2018
10% of Syrian refugees live in refugee camps in Southwest Asia
80%of Syrian refugees live in urban areas in Southwest Asia
5.4 Migration and Policy
Quotas - law that limits the number of immigrants allowed into the country each year
Kinship Links - networks of relatives and friends that lead migrants to follow the same path and settle in the same places of the migrants before them.
Kinship is a type of step migration
U.S. policy and government action have influenced a number of important migrations in American history. One of the earliest and most infamous examples of this influence was the Trail of Tears, the forced internal migration of approximately 100,000 Cherokee, Creek, Chickasaw, Choctaw, and Seminole people from their land in the southeastern United States. The five tribes’ lands, which were already attractive to European-American settlers, became even more desirable to the United States when gold was discovered there.
In fact, internal migrations happen more frequently than international migrations, due to the friction of distance.
Inter-regional migration: movement from one region of the country to another
Intra-regional migration: movement within one region of the country
An example of a voluntary internal migration is the great migration.
Internal migrations still happen today in the United States.
There are also secondary migrations such as the Hmong Migration. After migrating the first time they were dispersed, so they did a second one and moved to the same areas.
The main goal behind the creation of most immigration policy is to meet labor market needs. A secondary aim is to maintain current levels of immigration.
These limits may have as much to do with xenophobia—or fear and hatred of foreigners—as they do with the good of the country. In contrast, loosening quotas on immigrants from specific countries increases population diversity in the host country.
RISKS FOR FEMALE IMMIGRANTS: Gender and age play a role in the types of opportunities and risks that immigrants face. For instance, female immigrants face different opportunities and risks than their male counterparts. This is true even though the numbers of female and male immigrants are about equal.
The European Union’s early-21st century refugee crisis was exacerbated (made worse) by a policy requiring asylum seekers to remain in the first EU country entered and to apply for asylum there.
The Chinese Exclusion Act was the first U.S. policy to broadly restrict immigration. not until the passage of the 1965 Immigration and Nationality Act was a more inclusive policy instituted.
5.5 - EFFECTS OF MIGRATION
Migration changes both the places of origin and, of course, the destinations. And migration affects more than just those who migrate—it impacts the family, friends, and the rest of the communities on either side of the journey. When enough people move to or from a particular place, those impacts stretch beyond the individual to influence that place economically, culturally, and even politically.
Recall that the overall trend in international migration is from less economically developed countries to more economically developed countries.
IMmigrants become a source of labor when this happens, especially since they’re likely to take lower-paying work.
Skills Gap: a shortage of people trained in a particular industry in a country’s workforce.
Immigrants often open small businesses in commercial districts with high vacancy rates, revitalizing these areas.
Since the 1990s, migration has been the main source of population growth in the core, and projections show that from 2020 on, migration will be the only source of population growth in these regions.
Since the majority of immigrants are of working age, migration lowers the dependency ratio of the destination country.
A large influx of immigrants willing to work for lower wages might reduce the number of jobs available for native-born citizens.
Furthermore, industries that are prone to high immigrants like agriculture can become too dependent on immigrant labor and suffer if immigration laws change.
Remittances: money earned by emigrants abroad and sent back to home countries—to family members who remain in the country of origin.
The economic effects on the countries left behind by immigrants are profound.
And, significantly, the remittances that many immigrants send home are an important source of support for the economies of many countries. In the benefit column, the country of origin might see a decrease in unemployment as working-age immigrants leave, opening up jobs for those who stay.
And, significantly, the remittances that many immigrants send home are an important source of support for the economies of many countries. They help the families of immigrants as well as their communities.
But there are costs to the countries of origin as well. The immigrants who leave are disproportionately young adults, and whether they are skilled workers, unskilled workers, or entrepreneurs, this loss can slow the home country’s economy and ability to develop.
Brain drain: the loss of trained or educated people to the lure of work in another—often richer—country.
This can be seen in the medical field and tech industry.
The spread of ideas and culture traits through migration is called relocation diffusion .
Some people believe a large influx of immigrants causes a society to change too much. They feel their country’s traditions are endangered by the introduction of new customs. These attitudes can lead to prejudice against immigrants.
Because of the challenges involved in migrating to a foreign country, immigrants tend to cluster together, creating segregated neighborhoods .
The extra money sent home as remittances pays for nicer clothes, better food, appliances, and other necessities and small luxuries for the immigrant’s family in Mexico. Legal and illegal immigrants send about $28 billion in remittances home to Mexico each year.
On the other hand, migration can have a disrupting effect on the social structure of a place of origin. For example, the rural villages surrounding Jalpan de Serra have lost many young men to migration.
The country of origin suffers a negative effect; when immigrants leave, it is mostly older people and young children who remain, bringing a high dependency ratio.