Topic 2.10 Notes – Causes of Migration

What Causes Migration

Migration means a long-term or permanent relocation from an origin to a destination. Immigration is moving into a place. Emigration is moving out of a place. Commuting, tourism, and other short-term movement are circulation, so they do not belong here.

Geographers explain migration with four connected ideas.

Push-pull model of migration

• Push factors are conditions at the origin that encourage people to leave.
• Pull factors are conditions at the destination that attract people there.
• Intervening obstacles are barriers between origin and destination that make moving harder, riskier, or more expensive.
• Intervening opportunities are appealing places along the way that cause migrants to stop short or change destinations.

These labels are relational. Unemployment in the home country is a push. Jobs in the destination are a pull. The same issue changes meaning depending on where it is in the migration flow. Also, migration almost never has one cause. A person might be pushed by drought, pulled by jobs, slowed by border controls, and redirected by family in a closer city.

Push and pull also do not mean forced vs voluntary. Someone can be strongly pushed and still choose among several destinations.

Types of Migration Causes

Cultural causes

Culture shapes migration through identity, language, religion, education, and family ties.

• Pushes include discrimination, ethnic tension, religious persecution, social exclusion, and restrictions on language or religion.
• Pulls include religious freedom, schools, relatives, ethnic enclaves, and shared language or religion.

Chain migration happens when family or community networks lower the cost and uncertainty of moving. Earlier migrants help with housing, jobs, information, and support.

A classic example is the Great Migration of Black Americans out of the South. Jim Crow laws and racial violence pushed people out. Northern and western cities such as Chicago and Detroit pulled them with factory jobs and more freedom.

Demographic causes

Demographic factors come from population size and structure.

• Pushes include rapid population growth, labor surplus, land scarcity, and pressure on housing or services.
• Pulls include labor shortages, aging populations, low fertility, and family already living at the destination.

Young adults migrate more often because they are most likely to be looking for work, education, or a place to start families.

Economic causes

Economic causes are some of the most common.

• Pushes include unemployment, underemployment, low wages, farm loss, high cost of living, and unequal access to land or credit.
• Pulls include jobs, better pay, housing, land, education, and upward mobility.

A common AP nuance is that migrants often move because of relative opportunity, not absolute poverty. The poorest people may not have enough money to move at all.

The Dust Bowl shows categories working together. Drought and soil erosion hurt farming. That environmental damage created economic push factors through crop failure, debt, and job loss. California pulled migrants with the hope of agricultural work.

Environmental causes

Environmental migration can be sudden or gradual.

• Pushes include drought, floods, hurricanes, earthquakes, wildfires, desertification, sea-level rise, pollution, and falling farm productivity.
• Pulls include safer conditions, fertile land, reliable water, and favorable climate.

Hurricane Katrina displaced many residents of New Orleans. The storm mattered, but so did unequal access to transportation, housing, and recovery aid. That is why environmental causes often connect to economic and social vulnerability.

Political causes

Political causes come from power, conflict, law, and rights.

• Pushes include war, persecution, repression, discriminatory laws, conscription, and land seizure.
• Pulls include peace, stability, asylum, legal protection, and immigration policies that admit workers or reunite families.

The Syrian civil war beginning in 2011 pushed people out through violence and repression. Neighboring countries and parts of Europe pulled migrants with safety and protection.

Intervening Obstacles and Intervening Opportunities

Migration is shaped by what happens between origin and destination.

Obstacles include:

• distance and distance decay
• deserts, mountains, oceans, dangerous routes
• travel costs, documents, temporary housing
• borders, visas, checkpoints, quotas, enforcement
• language barriers and anti-migrant hostility
• age, illness, or dependent family members

For Syrians heading toward Europe, the Mediterranean Sea, high travel costs, and border controls all acted as obstacles.

Intervening opportunities are substitute destinations:

• a nearer city with jobs
• a transit country offering asylum or legal residence
• family ties in an intermediate stop

Turkey worked as an intervening opportunity for some Syrians who stayed there instead of continuing to Europe. The key distinction is simple. An obstacle blocks or limits movement. An opportunity redirects it.

How to Explain Migration on the Exam

When you explain a migration pattern, build the cause clearly:

1. Identify the flow
   Say who is moving and from where to where.
2. Locate the factor
   Is it at the origin, destination, or between them?
3. Classify it
   Cultural, demographic, economic, environmental, or political.
4. Explain the link
   Show how it increased, reduced, blocked, or redirected migration.
5. Add interaction when needed
   Many migrations combine categories.

Scale also matters:

• Global = development gaps, labor demand, political stability
• Regional or national = war, drought, unemployment, policy
• Local or household = family networks, money, age, transportation access

Strong AP phrasing sounds like this: “Drought acted as an environmental push factor because it reduced agricultural productivity, which created economic pressure through crop failure and farm loss.”