Causes of Migration
- Most migrants move for work; known as economic migrants
- Others move to re-join family members, as part of the diaspora growth
- Post-colonial migrant flows to the UK when former colonies became part of the Commonwealth
- After the second World War, many countries had labour shortages and needed to rebuild their economies
- The 1948 British Nationality Act, gave people from UK colonies, the right to live and work in Britain
- Job vacancies in the UK offered an opportunity to people in Caribbean countries, who were also struggling economically post-war
- Many of those who came, became manual workers, drivers, cleaners, and nurses in the newly-established NHS and known as the Windrush Generation
- International migrants are not always the poorest, as money is needed to make a journey (even human trafficking has costs to the migrant)
- There are other causes of migration, including displacement of refugees due to conflict and poverty in countries of origin
Types of Migrants
Definition | Internal | External | |
Voluntary | The individual or household has a free choice about whether to move or not | Rural to urban for jobs | West Indians to the UK |
Urban to rural retirement | British doctors to the USA | ||
Forced | Occurs when the individual or household has little or no choice but to move | British inner city slum clearance | African slaves to America - Atlantic slave trade |
Amerindians into rainforest reserves | War - 8.1 million refugees were recorded leaving Ukraine in 2022 | ||
Impelled or Political | This may be due to environmental or human factors |
Natural disasters – Mt Pinatubo, Philippines |
Muslims and Hindu in India |
- Forced migration still occurs today - Syrian refugee crisis, Ukrainians forced to flee from Russian invasion etc.
- Counter-migration, in which governments detain migrants who enter or attempt to enter their countries illegally and return the migrants to their home countries
- Impelled migration as a result of natural disasters has unexpected consequences
- Many Montserratians fled to the United States when Plymouth was destroyed in 1995 and were given ‘temporary protected’ immigration status
- The U.S. government told Montserratian refugees to leave in 2005 - not because the volcanic crisis was over or because the housing crisis caused by the eruption was solved
- Rather, the U.S. government expected the volcanic crisis to last at least 10 more years; so, the Montserratians no longer qualified as ‘temporary’ refugees