Causes of Migration

Economic Linkage (Example)

One of the major reasons for migration at individual level is the threat of insufficient family income. When an individual knows that he/she will be unable to meet the needs of his household, he/she thinks alternative ways to increase his income. Now the reason for this threat can be unavailability of some kind of insurance program that can handle this situation. For example, in an agricultural country, majority of the people are dependent on their income from farming. The unavailability of crop insurance, and the lack of government programs to cover the loss of crops due to natural or human hazards put the households of such farmers at risk. This level of this risk is directly associated with the volume of migration from the sending country. Another relevant example is that of highly skilled human resources migration. if a country has qualified human resources related to a particular technology available but there are no government programs available to nurture and establish the related industry, then the qualified human resource will move towards a receiving country where there is more work going in that technology related industries. Among recent examples are those of telecom sector establishment in Middle East and Afghanistan. Middle East and Afghanistan hosted huge migrations from sending countries with more technology human resources available but where either there was no market for those skills or the demand was far less than the supply of the human resources. All these flows were due to wage differences, towards better economic gains, despite the hardships they had to bear in the receiving countries.

Cultural Linkage (Example):

Sharing a common culture between sending and receiving countries promotes and boosts the immigration chances because the immigrants don’t feel cultural hurdles in adjusting to the new environment. If more people from the same culture immigrate to the receiving country, they constitute cultural groups (ethnic networks). The formation of ethnic networks has different effects. The immigrants don’t tend to learn the new language as they have more people of their own culture and language available around them. The receiving country becomes welcoming for more immigrants from the same ethnicity if an ethnic network exists already. Middle East for example has been a good option as receiving country for majority of south Asian countries as Middle East already has a majority of immigrants from South Asian region which helps them avoid the risk of cultural shock. Similarly, New York being home to immigrants for a huge diversity of nationalities and cultures now offers a lot of food varieties and new foods are not only being enjoyed by immigrants but also by natives. This has given a boost to new food industries in the city of New York. Jamaica and some other areas of New York give a picture of a different counry (e.g. Bangladesh, India, Pakistan) etc.

Political Linkages (Example)

Political Linkage can be explained with a very popular example of Afghani’s migrating (majorly) to Pakistan and Canada. The political situation in Afghanistan in terms of instability, war, violence, and bad governance caused many Afghanis to seek asylum migration in Canada. The worst the situation got in Afghanistan, the more the volume of migration to other countries. The absence of immigrant policies as well as the geographical location of Pakistan caused majority of the immigrants to move to Pakistan. The more welcoming environment and policies and better economic status also caused many Afghanis to flow towards Canada. As the immigration policies keep on getting stronger, the inflow of immigrants from sending countries reduces.