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Migration - Theories Of Migration

gender poverty theory family development theory economic push labor

People move for different reasons. These differences affect the overall migration process. The conditions under which a migrant enters a receiver population can have broad implications for all parties involved. The expression migration experience refers to the fact that different causes for migration will produce different outcomes observable from a sociological perspective. For example, a person who moves within a nation will not have the same migration experience as a political refugee. In most cases, refugees need special services from the receiver population such as emergency shelter, food, and legal aid. The psychological trauma of fleeing their homeland and leaving family members behind can also complicate refugees' adjustment to their new environment. Considering that a migrant can be a slave, refugee, or job-seeker, or have some other reason for moving, no single theory can provide a comprehensive explanation for the migration process.

Although a comprehensive theory is unattainable, it remains a crucial task of demographers to explain why people migrate. Theories of migration are important because they can help us understand population movements within their wider political and economic contexts. For example, if outmigration from Third World nations is shown to be a result of economic problems caused by the global economy, then such migration could be managed with better international economic agreements instead of restrictive immigration acts. Indeed, rather than slowing Mexican in-migration to the United States, termination of the bracero program actually increased the amount of illegal immigration because it exacerbated Mexican poverty.

Ernest Ravenstein is widely regarded as the earliest migration theorist. Ravenstein, an English geographer, used census data from England and Wales to develop his "Laws of Migration" (1889). He concluded that migration was governed by a "push-pull" process; that is, unfavorable conditions in one place (oppressive laws, heavy taxation, etc.) "push" people out, and favorable conditions in an external location "pull" them out. Ravenstein's laws stated that the primary cause for migration was better external economic opportunities; the volume of migration decreases as distance increases; migration occurs in stages instead of one long move; population movements are bilateral; and migration differentials (e.g., gender, social class, age) influence a person's mobility.

Many theorists have followed in Ravenstein's footsteps, and the dominant theories in contemporary scholarship are more or less variations of his conclusions. Everett Lee (1966) reformulated Ravenstein's theory to give more emphasis to internal (or push) factors. Lee also outlined the impact that intervening obstacles have on the migration process. He argued that variables such as distance, physical and political barriers, and having dependents can impede or even prevent migration. Lee pointed out that the migration process is selective because differentials such as age, gender, and social class affect how persons respond to push-pull factors, and these conditions also shape their ability to overcome intervening obstacles. Furthermore, personal factors such as a person's education, knowledge of a potential receiver population, family ties, and the like can facilitate or retard migration.

Several theories have been developed to treat international patterns of migration on their own terms, but these too are variants of push-pull theory. First, neoclassical economic theory (Sjaastad 1962; Todaro 1969) suggests that international migration is related to the global supply and demand for labor. Nations with scarce labor supply and high demand will have high wages that pull immigrants in from nations with a surplus of labor. Second, segmented labor-market theory (Piore 1979) argues that First World economies are structured so as to require a certain level of immigration. This theory suggests that developed economies are dualistic: they have a primary market of secure, well-remunerated work and a secondary market of low-wage work. Segmented labor-market theory argues that immigrants are recruited to fill these jobs that are necessary for the overall economy to function but are avoided by the native-born population because of the poor working conditions associated with the secondary labor market. Third, world-systems theory (Sassen 1988) argues that international migration is a by-product of global capitalism. Contemporary patterns of international migration tend to be from the periphery (poor nations) to the core (rich nations) because factors associated with industrial development in the First World generated structural economic problems, and thus push factors, in the Third World.


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10 months ago

sehin merawi

full document of the theory under request

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about 1 year ago

Hello very good information

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over 3 years ago

Gold mine. Thanks for the vauable info

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about 4 years ago

hi friends really i thanks a lot for ur valuable information. please try to add all kinds of migration theory.

yours

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12 months ago

mmmmmmm..... average

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about 1 year ago

hi!

Congrats for a good paper. please can I get the name of the author and the year in which this work was written? I get problem on how to cite it.please help me as soon as possible

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9 days ago

raju

Thanks its helping my research

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4 months ago

eunice

hello all Ur information are firsthand which contain fact& reality

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4 months ago

eunice

hello all Ur information are firsthand which contain fact& reality

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4 months ago

eunice

hello all Ur information are firsthand which contain fact& reality

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4 months ago

eunice

hello all Ur information are firsthand which contain fact& reality

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5 months ago

geethu

Very good reference material.

thank you

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6 months ago

khunza

good work..it helped me a lot

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8 months ago

my is philip torres and i like to party im from north haven ct

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9 months ago

Badger

Could I have the author please and the date of publication? Thanks.

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10 months ago

sanu

excellent job...... keep it up

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11 months ago

Justina

Excellent reference material on migration. Found it very useful. Thanks for the good work!

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about 1 year ago

Hi!

Great information, but i really want to know when this article was published?



Thanks



Best regards

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about 1 year ago

Thanks for the good overview.



Though, who is behind this site and how exactly am I supposed to cite this in academia (if at all)?

It says that "Content on this website is from high-quality, licensed material originally published in print form." --> where is the reference to the printed work? Does this mean you have just copied it out somewhere or have you published a book yourself? And which one would it be then?



Thank you.

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about 1 year ago

Michaela

This is great info i used it for my grade 8 geography homework thanks :)

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over 1 year ago

Thanks ‎​ƒσя †нє valuable information,...I really enjoyed it,... G‎​D bless

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over 1 year ago

Thanks ‎​ƒσя †нє valuable information,...I really enjoyed it,... G‎​D bless

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over 1 year ago

tatek

excellent site. thank you I love it...

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over 1 year ago

r

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over 1 year ago

thanks for you efforts at putting valubale information regarding migration. It will be good if you add some recent develomnet model of migration, especially NELM model.

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over 1 year ago

Great information...it has inspire me to know more about migration and especially push and pull factors from the work of Ernest Ravenstein (1889).Please i am requesting for the full work or pages of Ravestein which i found out that it will be useful to my postgraduate studies in demography/sociology.I am in interested in the original work and if possible it can be sent to my email box.
Thank you,
Monica

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almost 3 years ago

Oludare Folowosele

Thanks for your efforts at putting up this important information. As Carey said, I will appreciate it if you could assist with the references of the authors quoted on your website to enable me acknowledge them in my work on Migrants' remittances, especially Ravenstein's 1889 and Everett Lee 1966. I'm also interested in looking at the original works.
Thanks a million times, Dee.


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over 3 years ago

Hi,
This info has been very useful to me. Do you have references for the work cited, such as Ravenstein's 1889 and Everett Lee 1966?
I am interested in looking at the original work.
Thank you,
Carey

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over 3 years ago

I found the information to be so much more than just being insightful. Thank you

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over 3 years ago

I thank you for your effort. You are indeed building future intellectual citizens. Your work is helping me to do my work as Iam persuing a masters Degree in Population and Development at Makerere University.

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over 3 years ago

I appreciate your great effort to bring such a sets of theories that revolve arround on the issue of migration. it help me to compare their views and draw its relevance to my work. I thank you and keep it up. But I still insist you add the full lists of references, because we students from developing economy face problem to to take these ideas and acknowledge them as such books will not be found in our libraries, and our supervisors do not accept these wepages.

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over 3 years ago

how do i reference this in an assignment using the Harvard Bibliography style ??

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over 3 years ago

I MUST THANK YOU A LOT FOR THIS PRECISE YET APT DISCOURSE ON MIGRATION THEORY. AND IT SO HAPPEN THAT I WAS GROPING FOR TEACHING MATERIALS FOR A COURSE OF MIGRATION THAT'S BEEN JUST THRUST ON ME TO COACH TO UNIVERSITY STUDENTS! I NOW HAVE SOMETHING TO START OFF WITH,THANBKS TO YR EFFORTS

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almost 4 years ago

thank you you for providing this timely information to the researchers (that need concise, brief and important theories like these) like me.

hope you provide some supplementary information. regarding migration and the likes.

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almost 4 years ago

The summary is very good you have tried to hit main points

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almost 4 years ago

Thanks a lot for the information..its outstanding in a brief way ..

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about 4 years ago

THANX a lot for the succinct and helpful info on migration theories.

yours

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about 4 years ago

iam very gratefull to have relevant material iam in need on tour site but try to specified each theory alone. thanks

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about 4 years ago

thank you so much for the information on the theories of migration. are these all because i am fearing to fail my exam which i'm gonna wright tomorrow. thanks so much. yours faith