Migration as a Component of Population Change

Migration: Basic Terminology and Principles

Migration is defined as the movement of people across a specified boundary, whether national or international, to establish a new permanent place of residence. The United Nations (UN) specifies that for a move to be considered "permanent," the change of residence must last more than $1$ year.

Directional Terminology

• International Migration:     * Immigration: Moving into a country.     * Emigration: Leaving a country.

• Internal Migration:     * In-migration: Moving into a region within a country.     * Out-migration: Leaving a region within a country.

Net Migration

Net migration is the calculation of the number of migrants entering a region or country minus the number of migrants who leave the same area.

The Migration Process

Migrations occur between an area of origin and an area of destination. According to E. S. Lee’s model (Figure 5.1), the journey between these points is influenced by:

• Intervening Obstacles: Barriers such as physical distance, cost, or legal restrictions.

• Intervening Opportunities: Positive factors encountered during the journey that might cause a migrant to stay before reaching the original destination.

• Migration Stream: A group of migrants sharing a common origin and destination.

• Counterstream: A reverse flow that usually occurs for every migration stream.

Push and Pull Factors

Migrations are driven by factors at the origin and destination (Figure 5.2):

• Push Factors (Negative factors at origin): Social upheaval, natural disasters, adverse climatic conditions, intolerance, poor employment, low income, and housing shortages.

• Pull Factors (Positive factors at destination): High standard of living, attractive environment, amenities, tolerance, job prospects, high wages, and improved housing.

Voluntary vs. Forced Migration

• Voluntary Migration: The individual or household has a free choice about whether to move.

• Forced Migration: The individual or household has little or no choice but to move due to environmental (natural disasters) or human factors (persecution, slavery).

Classifications and Models of Migration

W. Peterson’s Five Migratory Types (1958)

1. Primitive Migration: Includes nomadic pastoralism and shifting cultivation practiced by traditional societies.

2. Forced Migration: Involves abduction and transport, such as the transport of Africans to the Americas as slaves ($15 imes 10^6$ people), or displacement by natural disasters.

3. Impelled Migration: Occurs under perceived human or physical threat. Unlike forced migration, an element of choice remains.

4. Free Migration: Individuals have freedom of choice to move.

5. Mass Migration: Similar to free migration but distinguished by its large magnitude. The movement of Europeans to North America is the largest historical example.

Akin Mabogunje’s Systems Approach

Mabogunje analyzed rural-urban migration in Africa as a circular, interdependent, and self-modifying system (Figure 5.3). Key components include:

• Feedback Loops: Urban economic expansion stimulates rural-urban migration, while deteriorating urban conditions reduce it.

• Information Flow: Constant communication between out-migrants and rural origins determines future flows.

• Control Sub-systems: Includes governmental policies, agricultural practices, and marketing organizations that regulate movement.

Theoretical Models

• The Todaro Model (Cost-Benefit): Michael Todaro argued that migrants have realistic perceptions of urban life based on information flows. They move because they weigh long-term socio-economic improvement against short-term deprivation.

• Stark’s ‘New Economics of Migration’: Replaces the individual with the household as the unit of analysis. Migration is seen as economic diversification and risk spreading for the family.

• Marxist/Structuralist Theory: Views labour migration as inevitable during the transition to capitalism. Migration is the only survival option after alienation from the land.

• Structuration Theory: Combines individual motives with structural factors. It highlights how rules regulating behaviour also provide "room for manoeuvre" for migrants.

• Gender Analyses: Focuses on different migration responses between men and women and the role of gender discrimination.

Case Study: Push and Pull Factors in Brazil

Brazil has experienced significant rural-to-urban migration since the $1950s$, primarily toward cities like São Paulo and Rio de Janeiro.

Constraints, Obstacles, and Data Sources

Barriers to Migration

1. Legal Barriers: In international migration, immigration laws are the most formidable barrier. Countries often prioritize skilled workers or business investors.

2. Economic Costs: Categorized into three parts:     * "Closing up" costs at the point of origin.     * The actual cost of movement.     * "Opening up" costs at the destination.

3. Distance and Physical/Human Risks: Includes physical risks like floods, droughts, or landslides, and human risks such as hostility or accidents.

Sources of Migration Data

1. Population Censuses: Taken at regular intervals; provide data on birthplaces and period migration (movement over specific timeframes).

2. Population Registers: Continuous data collected by countries like Japan, Norway, Sweden, and Switzerland. Residents must notify authorities of address changes.

3. Specific Surveys: Example: The UK's International Passenger Survey, conducted at seaports and airports to track international movement.

Internal Migration Patterns and Scale

Internal migration is categorized by spatial dimensions:

• Distance: Local, intra-district, inter-district, intra-provincial, inter-provincial, intra-regional, and inter-regional.

• Direction: Rural-rural, rural-urban, urban-rural, urban-urban, periphery-core, and core-periphery.

Levels of Analysis

1. Macro-level (Large scale): Focuses on national socio-economic differences, specifically the Core-Periphery concept.     * Core: Concentrated economic development, advanced infrastructure, high income, low unemployment.     * Periphery: Low economic development, low income, high unemployment, poor infrastructure.

2. Meso-level (Intermediate scale): Considers specific factors at origin and destination, emphasizing individual perception.

3. Micro-level (Small scale): Focuses on specific family circumstances, urban contacts, and Chain Migration (where pioneering migrants lead the way for others from the same community).

Urban-Urban and Stepped Migration

Stepped Migration occurs when a migrant moves from a village to a small town, then eventually to a larger city as they gain skills and confidence (Figure 5.6). Nigeria is a key example of this hierarchy-climbing movement.

Intra-urban Movement and the Family Life Cycle

Residential patterns within cities are influenced by income and the family life cycle (Figure 5.7).

• Stages include: Childhood, Pre-parenthood, Child-rearing (primary-age), Child-rearing (adolescent), and Grand-parenthood/Elderly.

• Higher-income households have more choice, while low-income housing (e.g., council housing in the UK) is more restricted.

Counterurbanisation

This is the decentralization of population from large urban areas to smaller settlements or rural areas. It became prominent in the USA in the $1970s$. Explanations include:

• Period Explanation: Specific economic circumstances of the $1970s$.

• Regional Restructuring: Changes in the spatial division of labour.

• De-concentration: Lowering of technological/institutional barriers to rural living (most important factor).

Impacts of Internal and International Migration

Socio-Economic Impact

• Remittances: Money sent home by migrants. In $2008$, international remittances totaled $397 imes 10^9$ USD ($305 imes 10^9$ USD went to LEDCs).

• Remittance Case Study - Nepal: As shown in Figure 5.9, there is a direct correlation where increased remittances lead to a lower poverty headcount rate.

• Brain Drain: The loss of skilled workers from donor countries, though often compensated by the Multiplier Effect of remittances.

• Labour: International migrants often take "3D" jobs (Dirty, Dangerous, and Dull/Difficult) in construction or service sectors.

Political Impact

• Representation: Depopulation leads to lower political voice; growth leads to increased importance.

• Ethnic Balance: Example: The in-migration of Han Chinese into Tibet since $1950$ has changed the ethnic composition, perceived by Tibetans as a threat to culture.

• Voting Patterns: Immigrants often lean toward centre-left political parties.

Environmental Impact

• Large-scale rural-urban migration causes urban sprawl into farmland and floodplains.

• Increased demand for water, pollution, and expansion of landfill sites.

• Arguments in the USA (Staples and Cafaro) suggest immigration increases the "environmental footprint."

Population Structure

• Migration is age-selective (young adults). This leaves rural areas with high dependency ratios of elderly/children and creates gender imbalances if one sex migrates more frequently.

International Migration and Specific Case Studies

Forced Displacement

Trends contributing to increased displacement include:

• New forms of warfare destroying social systems.

• Proliferation of light weapons.

• Ethnic Cleansing: Use of mass expulsions to create homogeneous societies.

• Refugee: Forced to leave home/country due to a fear of persecution.

• Internally Displaced Person (IDP): Forced to leave home but remains within the same country.

• Environmental Refugees: Predicted $200 imes 10^6$ people displaced by $2050$ due to climate change (tropical storms, rising sea levels).

Case Study: Diasporas in London

• Over $200$ languages are spoken in London.

• $30.0\%$ of Londoners were born outside the UK (compared to $2.9\%$ in Northeast England).

• Ethnic Villages: Visible concentrations of cultures (e.g., Chinese in Soho, Koreans in New Malden, Bangladeshis in Tower Hamlets).

Case Study: Mexico to the USA

• One of the largest migration streams ($30.0\%$ of all legal US immigrants; $50.0\%$ of all unauthorized foreigners).

• Key Drivers: Income gaps and unemployment differences.

• History:     * Braceros Programme ($1917-1921$ and $1942-1964$): Legal guest worker recruitment for US farms during wars.     * IRCA ($1986$): Immigration Reform and Control Act legalized $2.7 imes 10^6$ unauthorized foreigners ($85.0\%$ Mexican).

• Current Status: By $2006$, $12 imes 10^6$ Mexican-born people lived in the USA ($11.0\%$ of Mexico's population).

• Remittances: Totaled $25 imes 10^9$ USD in $2008$ for Mexico.

Questions & Discussion

Review Questions (Now Test Yourself)

1. Define migration. Migration is the movement of people across a specified boundary to establish a new permanent residence (usually specified as over $1$ year by the UN).

2. Explain origin and destination. Origin is the starting point of the move; destination is where the move is completed.

3. Examples of primitive migration. Nomadic pastoralism and shifting cultivation.

4. Forced vs. Impelled migration. Forced migration leave no choice (e.g., slavery); impelled migration involves a threat but retains an element of choice.

5. Mabogunje's approach. He used a systems approach.

6. Todaro model economist. Michael Todaro (American economist).

7. Three economic costs. Closing up at origin, cost of movement, opening up at destination.

8. Brazil push factors. Mechanisation, farm amalgamation, poor rural conditions.

9. Brazil pull factors. Paid employment, health/education services, better housing.

10. Data sources. Census, population registers, specific surveys.

11. Rural-rural migration reasons. Employment, family reunion, marriage.

12. Scale of internal migration. Macro, meso, and micro levels.

13. Core and Periphery. Core is an economically developed region; periphery is a region of low or declining development.

14. Micro-level factors. Specific circumstances of individual families and urban contacts.

15. Support costs. Often move from village to city to support new urban migrants before they find work.

16. Remittances. Money sent home to families by migrants working elsewhere.

17. Counterurbanisation explanations. Period, regional restructuring, and de-concentration.

18. Stepped migration country. Nigeria.

19. Global foreigners. Approximately $175 imes 10^6$ people (one in $35$) live outside their birth country.

20. Refugee vs IDP. Refugees cross international borders; IDPs stay within their own country.

21. Mexico-USA states. California, Arizona, New Mexico, and Texas.