Push and Pull Factors of Migration
Table of Contents
Numerous factors can be the reasons for immigration to other places. Some people immigrate because of the economic and political reasons or natural disasters, whereas others immigrate because of their will to live in a better location. Additionally, genocide, ethnic cleansing, wars, religious persecution or dictatorship of the government can also be the reasons for immigration. In terms of total population, production and employment, immigration may have both positive and negative impact on the new host and home countries.
Impacts of Migration on the Host and Home Countries
Due to immigration, a host country undergoes both advantageous and adverse changes. First of all, once people have immigrated to a new place, they encounter numerous challenges related to finding employment together with shelter, adjusting to a new culture, establishing a new lifestyle, abiding by new laws and, of course, learning a new language. It must be a challenge for the host country to deliver the needed support to the immigrants into a new society. Some people believe that immigration can bring many advantages to the country’s economy and society. When the new population settles in the country, the employment vacancies must be filled by them, which helps to fill the pension gaps through the contribution of immigrants, as they have to pay the existing taxes. Meanwhile, the immigrants can provide the host country with creative skills, innovations, and energy, and the country is simultaneously enriched by the new population’s cultural diversity. However, other experts claim that extensive immigration is hurtful for the economy, since it threatens the national identity and security, and raises the dependence of the country’s well-being on immigrants. Moreover, a larger number of immigrants means cheaper labor. Additionally, the increase of the population can bring aftermath to public and local services (Kaplan 2016). Furthermore, planned crimes and people trafficking can happen once the number of population rises in the area, and indeed, it requires more security monitoring than before.
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As already mentioned, home country faces many particular changes because of the immigration. Once immigrants move to the new place, they can provide the country with positive changes for its future. For instance, in long-run immigrants have their impact on the home country by increasing the standards of production and the number of population, and thus expanding local economy. It means the country is losing the population because of economic reasons, as it is too hard to improve the condition unless there are economic changes. In such case, economic disadvantage happenы due to losing young, strong and healthy workers. Shortly after losing some of the family members such as parents, there appear significant changes in the behavior of the young generation. What concerns advantages, if the immigrants are living in the new country and getting decent education, their success is very beneficial for the progress of the home country. What is more, many immigrants still think about their home country and keep on supporting their family members at home with the income they are receiving from the host country. Furthermore, the unemployment is reduced once the young migrants improve their lives and vision. When they return to their motherland, they carry with them new skills, a lot of savings and intercultural contacts that they established in the host countries.
Push and Pull Factors
May significant factors can be the reasons for immigration. They are distinguished on the basis of push and pull factors. Push factors force the population to move to the new places outside of their home countries. On the contrary, pull factors describe the opposite situation, which attracts the immigrants. There are several causes for both types of immigration mentioned above, including economic, social and physical reasons.
In the economic case, such push factors as low wage, the long-hour job in construction or sometimes in farming motivate the young generation to search for future in other areas, which are outside of the home country. Besides, overpopulation together with few job places as well as hard working conditions are also strong push factors for the vast immigration. Moreover, social reasons that include religious persecution, running from the government, social wars, and political as well as cultural pressure life are additional push factors (Miller 2010). Most often, the social causes of immigration happen in the religious field. Another situation that can be attributed to the push factors is physical reasons. In this case, natural disasters occupy the first place.
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Likewise, pull factors also can be of three types: economic, physical and social. Higher wages, better job vacancies, more abundant jobs, higher labor demand and the promise of free life are the economic causes of pull factors. Such countries as America, UK and Russia are becoming homes for vast numbers of migrants who are led by economic pull factors. As mentioned before, push factors mostly occur in a religious way. Therefore, pull factors in the case of social reasons involve religious tolerance. For instance, if any member of the UAE wants to convert to Christianity, western countries serve as a pull factor. In term of physical reasons, pull factors include attractive environments with beautiful sceneries, mountains, waterfalls, and seaside. For instance, Spain serves as a physical pull factor because of its warm winter that attracts mostly aged people or retirees and those who suffer from environmental allergies. There could also be another kind of pull factors including the place for the best medical care, education, weather conditions, culture, language, socio-political situation and many other reasons. It should be noted that the perceptions of people about the new places they are going to immigrate are correct. Those are not natural pull factors, but place utility, which is the desirable location of a country for most of the people, can attract an enormous amount of immigrants. In fact, it happens very rarely that people immigrate to the places that they do not know.
The Current Crises in the Mediterranean
The Mediterranean is undergoing a migration crisis in several countries like Syria and Afghanistan due to both push and pull factors. For instance, with regards to push factors, the immigrants are running away from their countries due to starvation, political crises and poor living standards. With regards to pull factors, people are migrating in search of freedom, liberty, and respect for human rights, which is widely present in the European countries (Jeandesboz & Pallister-Wilkins 2016). The immigrants are attracted to the favorable living factors in these countries, and they cannot decide to relocate there if the intended host countries have no peace and freedom.
The crisis happens because of the disastrous features of both regional and global governance of migration. Because of the prolonged and bloody wars, starvation, the abuse of human rights and many other influential factors, large numbers of population have to accept dangerous journeys of crossing the Mediterranean in order to reach another country in the European Union. The immigrants have been crossing the Mediterranean for several decades. According to the UN Refugee Agency United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), 89,500 immigrants crossed the Mediterranean in the first five months of 2015 (Van Reekum 2016). It has happened for the variety of reasons, including geopolitical issues. Mostly, immigrants have been crossing the Northern Africa and the central Mediterranean. However, huge number of refugees are now crossing the Aegean Sea, which is eastern Mediterranean. The Aegean Sea is the route from Turkey to the Greek islands. The worst factor that confirms the crisis of the Mediterranean is the death rate that has been growing for a long time. The International Organization for Migration estimates that 22,400 migrants and refugees have lost their lives since 2000 in an attempt to reach the European Union (Jeandesboz & Pallister-Wilkins 2016). In fact, most of these casualties happened at the sea. Such countries as Afghanistan, Syria, Somalia, Eritrea and Libya face massive numbers of emigrants travelling across the Mediterranean. Human rights violation is the significant push factor for the asylum seekers, which forces them to migrate. Meanwhile, the immigration of unprecedented population has been taking place as they seek rights for life, freedom, liberty, respect for human rights, security and food (Rowlett & Brand 2014). Countries like Italy and Greece are overwhelmed by the penetration of immigrants across the Mediterranean.
Conclusion
The impact of migration can be both beneficial and troublesome for the economy of both host and home countries. As it has been already noted, immigration can occur for numerous reasons. Subsequently, push and pull factors include various economic, cultural, political, social and physical reasons. It is clear that the immigrants bring their cultural values to the host countries. With an increased numbers of immigrants, the Mediterranean is facing crisis. There are some significant facts that one must take into account when considering the reasons for the immigration across the Mediterranean. There are some pulls factor, but mostly push determinants dominate the decision of emigrants. Vast numbers of people who are leaving their home states for good include refugees and asylum seekers, and they have to leave their motherland in search of a peaceful life, food and security.