1. Migration
Chapter 3

2. Migration
• Migration A change in
residence that is
intended to be
permanent.
• Emigration-leaving a
country.
• Immigration-entering a
country.
Little Haiti, Miami, Florida

3. • On average, Americans move once every 6 years.
• US population is the most mobile in the world with
over 5 million moving from 1 state to another every
year.
• 35 million move within a state, county or community
each year.
• Migration a key factor in the speed of diffusion of
ideas and innovation.
• Our perception of distance and direction are often
distorted-thus a sizable % of migrants return to their
original home due to these distorted perceptions.

4. Types of Migration
• Forced Migration-migrants
have no choice-must leave.
• periodic movement-short term
(weeks or months) seasonal
migration to college, winter in
the south, etc.
• Cyclic movement-daily
movement to work, shopping.
• Transhumance-seasonal
pastoral farming-Switzerland,
Horn of Africa.
• Nomadism-cyclical, yet Commuter train in Soweto,
irregular migration that follows South Africa
the growth of vegetation.

5. Key Factors in Migration
• External Migration-from one country to
another (emigration & immigration)
• Internal Migration-from one part of a country
to another part
• Direction:
– Absolute-compass directions
– Relative-Sun Belt, Middle East, Far East, Near East
• Distance:
– Absolute distance “as the crow flies”
– Relative distance-actual distance due to routes
taken such as highways or railroads

6. Catalysts of Migration
• Economic conditions-poverty
and a desire for opportunity.
• Political conditions-
persecution, expulsion, or war.
• Environmental conditions-crop
failures, floods, drought,
environmentally induced
famine.
• Culture and tradition-
threatened by change.
• Technology-easier and cheaper
transport or change in livability.

7. • Chain migration-migration of people to a specific location
because of relatives or members of the same nationality
already there.
• Step migration-short moves in stages-e.g. Brazilian family
moves from village to town and then finally Sao Paulo or
Rio de Janeiro
• Refugees-those who have been forced to migrate.
• Push-Pull Factors-push factors induce people to leave.
Pull factors encourage people to move to an area.
• Distance decay-contact diminishes with increasing
distance. (both diffusion and migration)
• Intervening opportunity-alternative destinations that can
be reached more quickly and easily.

8. Internal Migration -
Movement within a single country’s borders
(implying a degree of permanence).

9. Voluntary Migration – Migrants weigh push and pull
factors to decide first, to emigrate from the home country
and second, where to go.
Distance Decay
weighs into the
decision to
migrate, leading
many migrants to
move less far
than they
originally
contemplate.

10. Economic Conditions – Migrants will often risk
their lives in hopes of economic opportunities that will
enable them to send money home (remittances) to
their family members who remain behind.

13. In Altar, Sonora, migrants called pollos (chickens), stock up
On supplies for the desert crossing.

14. Most illegal immigrants are Mexicans, but a growing number
Are from Central and South America, like the men waiting
Outside of “Bar Honduras” in Nuevo Laredo.

15. • A massive dump site
in Arizona’s Upper
Altar Valley. After
walking 40 miles
through the desert,
illegal immigrants are
met here by coyotes.
They are told to dump
their old clothes &
packs and put on
more “American”
looking clothes the
coyotes have brought.
They then begin the
trip to an urban stash
house.

17. Environmental Conditions –In Montserrat, a 1995
volcano made the southern half of the island, including
the capital city of Plymouth, uninhabitable. People who
remained migrated to the north or to the U.S.

18. Economic
Opportunities
Islands of
Development –
Places within a
region or country
where foreign
investment, jobs,
and infrastructure
are concentrated.

19. Economic
Opportunities
In late 1800s and
early 1900s,
Chinese migrated
throughout
Southeast Asia to
work in trade,
commerce, and
finance.

20. Reconnecting
Cultural Groups
•About 700,000 Jews
migrated to then-
Palestine between 1900
and 1948.
•After 1948, when the
land was divided into
two states (Israel and
Palestine), 600,000
Palestinian Arabs fled or
were pushed out of
newly-designated Israeli
territories.

21. Jerusalem, Israel: Jewish settlements on the
West Bank.

22. Ernst Ravenstein’s “Laws of migration
1885 he studied the migration of England
• Most migrants go only a short distance.
• Big cities attract long distance migrants.
• Most migration is step-by-step.
• Most migration is rural to urban
• Each migration flow produces a counterflow.
• Most migrants are adults-families are less
likely to make international moves.
• Most international migrants are young males.

23. • Gravity model is an inverse relationship between
volume of migration and distance to the destination.
• Gravity model was anticipated by Ravenstein.
• The physical laws of gravity first studied by Newton can
be applied to the actions of humans in terms of
migration and economics
• Spatial interaction such as migration is directly related
to the populations and inversely related to the distance
between them.
• International refugees cross one or more borders and
are encamped in a country not their own.
• Intranational refugees abandon their homes, but not
their countries-this is the largest number world wide.

24. The Refugee Problem
• UN definition-person who
migrates out of fear of
being persecuted for
reasons of
race, religion, nationality, s
ocial status or political
opinion.
• Difficult to get an accurate
count-governments
manipulate the numbers.
• Internal (intranational)
refugees a bigger issue
than external

25. Refugees
A person who flees across an international boundary because
of a well-founded fear of being persecuted for reasons of race,
religion, nationality, membership of a particular social group,
or political opinion.