Understanding Migration: Push and Pull Factors

Migration is the movement of people across a specified boundary for the purpose of establishing a new or semi-permanent residence. External migration is where residences change between a residential unit in the Demographic Surveillance Systems (DSA) with one outside it, and internal migration is where residences change from one residential unit to another in the same DSA (Indepth 2008). Migration is a process of civilians moving from one region to another region by some push and pull factors. Certain push and pull factors like brain drain, racism, better living standards and higher chances of employment cause a particular person to migrate.

In recent years, there has been a significant rise of migration within the global community. Although, migration has some disadvantages in the sense of racism and brain drain, its benefits far outweighs the disadvantages that come with it. The trend of migration is a positive phenomenon as it contributes to the ever needy job vacancy in the host country, as well as strengthening the economy in both origin and host country and creates a better society with a variety of culture in the host country.

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The infamous Brain Drain is one of the greatest downfalls of a country, since, it works against developing nations. It can be defined as the mass emigration of technically skilled workers that will migrate from one country to another to have a better income. The reason behind this mass migration is based on the countries of origin. In particular, a social environment is a cause of the brain drain, while in terms of individual purpose; it refers to a preference of lifestyle.

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These people are usually skilled professionals who migrate to pursue higher salaries (Karpilo 2010).

According to CNN World; the National Unions of Students in Europe (ESIB) was suffering a serious long-term internal brain drain because more European students are going to Britain due to educational and employment reasons. Many people from Poland migrate to the West due to high unemployment rates in their own country, in 2004, 100,000 EU (European Union) students were enrolled in UK higher education, of which 54,000 were on undergraduate and 46,000 in postgraduate courses, according to Britain’s educational authority, DES (Department of Education and Skills).

This states that the U. S. is losing out to the U. K. in attracting international students (Stenman 2006). Thousands of skilled young South Africans tend to emigrate in search of a better living, thus, draining the country of much-needed economic resources such as manpower. According to BBC News; 100,000 people every year leave South Africa and the 70% that are still in there say they are considering emigrating, despite their government asking them to stay and work in the country. Racism is an act of discrimination or prejudice based on one’s race.

It’s a negative social behavior to people with different cultures and races. This is one of the major issues the world is facing. Immigration can be a social issue, where racism is used to exploit feelings and express woes of the local population towards the immigrants (Nittle 2011). According to the New York Times; a group a West Africans migrated to Rocky Mountains, North America in search of economic opportunity were involved in a disagreement with Wal-Mart, accusing it of discriminatory actions, they argued that they were been dismissed because supervisors wanted them to give their jobs to locals.

Most of the African employees were repeatedly disciplined for not meeting the production necessities. Eventually, they were fired; non-African workers were not subjected to the same criticism. As reported by CNN U. S. ; a poll has been conducted to 1,031 Americans, including 328 blacks and 703 whites by Opinion Research Corp. for CNN indicates that all Whites and Blacks disagree on how a serious problem racial bias in U. S. 50% of black respondents states that racism is a “very serious” problem, while 18% of whites shares the same thought. 48% of whites and 35% of blacks considered that it is a “fairly serious”.

When asked if they consider someone a racist, 48% of blacks and 43% of whites agreed. However, 13% of whites and 12% of blacks considered themselves racially biased. The modern era has brought many changes to the world due to migration. Many countries are considering it as a way to improve their economy based on more job opportunities, and developing a country to be more integrated. Despite negative effects to the economy and labor force caused by brain drain and racial discrimination, migration has benefits that will ensure the development of a country’s wealth, cultural integration, and improve living standards.

Migrants contribute to the economic development of a country in many ways, such as, fulfilling labor force shortages, investing in the economy, and supporting international trade through knowledge of overseas marketing strategies, business networks, and cultural integration. Immigration results in an open global market, giving a general perspective to the social and economic growth of society, thus, increase the horizon of development (Australian Human Rights Commission 2005). Employed immigrants nvariably increase the nation’s wealth by intensifying competition and expanding the distribution of employment. As the immigrant’s income increases, more demand is made for products and services beyond the basics, thus, immigrants bring an effective boost to the economy (Boudreaux 2000). According to the World Bank (2010); developing countries received US$325 billion remittances in 2010, not much over US$316 received in 2009, but are likely to increase by 6. 2% in 2011 and 8. 1% by 2012 due to economic development by migration.

Rich industrialized countries offer far higher basic salaries than developing and third-world countries. In addition, first-world economies like of America and Australia also have a fixed minimum wage ensuring that even migrant workers from less-developed countries receive a higher basic salary. Migration enables people to relate to new ways of life. It leads to an exchange of knowledge and experience between races or nations It also serves as an opportunity to collaborate with people of other countries to be a multi-racial community and to unite with each other and share their views (Gabriel 2011).

As migrants pursue their expedition, they gain new information due to the new environment that revolves around them. The immigrants’ pattern of movement reflects the conditions of an ever-changing world, sequentially, dramatic impacts of cultural experience of the places they’ve been often leaves a mark in them, these marks include, attitudes, languages, institutions, traditions, architectural manners, foods and music—all linking to the past, present and future generations of that place and it’s people (“Human Migration:” 2008).

First-world and developing countries like U. S. Canada and Australia have always included a large immigrant population; Australia is a multi-cultural country that consists of people from diverse culture and background. The Australian society guarantees respect, freedom and equality among individuals, it allows people to contribute to the social, political and economic life of Australia, and it gives benefits to all citizens from productive diversity, it includes the cultural, social and economic incentives arising from the diversity of the country’s population (Australian Human Rights Commission 2005). A pull factor of migration is a search for better standards of living.

Standard of living is used to suggest a person’s wellbeing; it refers to the economic level of an individual such as; level of wealth and basic necessities available to a certain place, it is also an ambition that people set for themselves as a consumer (Nardinelli 2008). People migrating to more developed countries will often find that the same work they were doing back home is rewarded abroad with higher salaries and welfare benefits, thus, migrants are drawn to those developing countries where they can maximize their profit and benefits (Levin Institute 2006).

Many people in Australia enjoys a high standard of living, this is best illustrated by the cost of housing, desirable family homes there are sold for less than US$290,000 and average mortgage is equivalent to US$255,000 making it affordable to all citizens, employment due to the changing settlement experience of New Migrants Reports shows that 95% of skilled-migrants found a job within a year or arriving in Australia and 94% of them express employment satisfaction, diversity due to approximately quarter of the population there was born outside Australia, thus, demonstrating how welcoming the country is to migrants, geography and landscape due to clear blue oceans, beaches. Desert, rain forests and those who considering to migrate there are bound to discover a new environment that they will enjoy (Iradale 2010). In conclusion, the migration phenomenon changes the life of everyone in this world due to the advantages that pertain to the development of countries and their people.

These advantages includes: contribution of migration to the economic growth as it makes a developed country even more developed, exchanging cultural experience and gaining new knowledge due to social interaction, and better standards of living as a foundation to success. However, migration has its disadvantages that’ll lead to a country’s downfall like brain drain and racism. Migration also contributes to the economic growth as it makes a developed county even more developed. Thus, it’s everyone’s responsibility including governments to cooperate as a whole, to make the world a better place to live in and to promote innovation for future generations to come. If we are to minimize poverty, migration should be promoted to improve the quality and preference of lifestyle. Introduction to migration policies should be enforced to countries in order to maximize benefits.

Updated: Mar 22, 2023
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Understanding Migration: Push and Pull Factors. (2016, Dec 14). Retrieved from https://studymoose.com/migration-essay

Understanding Migration: Push and Pull Factors essay
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