Push and pull factors: economic, social, political, cultural and environmental

Overview

Push and pull factors, main economic push factors and main economic pull factors.

What you need to know

Answer each one before you reveal it.

Questions from this subtopic

Each one with the model answer underneath.

1. 1

   What is migration, and how does it differ from other kinds of movement?

   Model answer

   Migration is a permanent or semi-permanent change of residence across an administrative boundary. It is distinguished from circulation, which is repeated movement with a return to the same home, such as commuting, shopping trips, seasonal work with a fixed base, or tourism. The distinction matters because migration changes the population of both origin and destination, whereas circulation changes only the daytime or seasonal distribution.

2. 2

   What are push and pull factors, and how do they work together?

   Model answer

   Push factors are the negative conditions at the origin that encourage people to leave; pull factors are the attractions of a destination that draw them in. In practice the decision to move is made by weighing the two against each other, filtered through the migrant's perception rather than the objective facts, and constrained by intervening obstacles such as cost, distance, law and family ties. That is why two people facing identical conditions may make different decisions, and why a strong push does not produce migration if the barriers are high enough.

3. 3

   What are the main economic push factors?

   Model answer

   Unemployment and underemployment; low or falling wages; the closure or decline of a dominant local industry such as fishing, mining, textiles or agriculture; mechanisation reducing the labour needed on the land; farm fragmentation through inheritance until holdings are too small to support a family; debt and lack of access to credit; poor prospects for advancement; and a general absence of opportunities for the qualifications young people now hold.

4. 4

   What are the main economic pull factors?

   Model answer

   The availability of jobs, especially where employers are actively recruiting; higher wages, including wages that are low by the destination's standards but high compared with the origin; a wider range of occupations and better prospects of promotion; training and higher education that leads to work; the ability to send remittances home; and, at the top of the labour market, specialist opportunities available in only a few world cities. Perceived opportunity matters as much as actual opportunity.

5. 5

   What are the main social push and pull factors?

   Model answer

   Pushes include poor and overcrowded housing, weak or closing schools and health services, isolation and lack of amenities in remote areas, limited marriage or social opportunities in a small community, and family or community pressure to leave or to support relatives elsewhere. Pulls include joining family already at the destination, better schools, hospitals and housing, the presence of an established community from the same origin providing language and support, a wider range of services and entertainment, and a perceived better quality of life.

6. 6

   Explain why a migrant's perception matters as much as the real conditions at the destination.

   Model answer

   Because people act on the information available to them, and that comes from relatives, returning migrants, recruiters, advertising, television and social media, all of which tend to emphasise success and understate difficulty. Expectations of wages, housing and acceptance are therefore often higher than the reality, which explains disappointment, downward occupational mobility on arrival and some return migration. It also explains why flows follow information channels: people move to the places they have heard about from someone they trust, which is why migration streams are so strongly channelled between particular pairs of places.

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