“There are 232 million people living outside
their country of birth, including myself. All of us are part of a productive
economy that benefits our world as a whole” Ban Ki-Moon,
I.
DEFINITION: Different scholars have tried to
define the concept of migration distinctly because of their different
approaches. While geographers have emphasized on the time and space
significance of mobility, sociologists have laid stress on social consequences
of mobility whereas importance to economic aspect of migration has been given
by the economists. Literal meaning of “Migration” is “shifting of people or an
individual or group of individual’s from one cultural area to another, which
may be permanent or temporary”. Migration is also generally understood as the
movement of a person or a group of people, to settle in another place, often
across a political or an administrative boundary. Migration can be temporal or
permanent, it may be voluntary or force,[1] In Webster‟s dictionary, the term has been
defined as “the act or an instance of moving from one country, region to settle
in another”. Secondly it as defined as “an act of moving from one area to
another in search of work”. According to many individuals, the simplest meaning
of the word migration can be a simple shift in the physical space. But it would
be interesting to note that meaning of migration is changing simultaneously
with the passage of time. Now-a-days, both the scope and definition of
migration have become more complicated i.e. only mobility in physical state cannot
define the concept of migration. [2]
Smith, T.L (1960),
based his concept of migration on change in physical space. The definition
suggested by Lee, E.S (1969) in “A Theory of Migration” poses some problems
when we look at various types of cyclical migration i.e. the movement of people
from villages to urban areas for the duration of their active life, their
visits back to the home town for a few days or a month could not be included
unless these are for last time at retirement etc.[3]
according to Theodore Laplow, “Migration is strictly speaking, a change of
residence and not necessarily involve any change of occupation, but it is
closely associated with occupational shifts of one kind or another. The
principal directions of migration are illustrated by more or less continuous
movements from rural areas towards the city, from areas of stable population
towards centers of industrial or commercial opportunity, from densely settled
countries to less densely settled countries and from the centers of the cities to
their suburbs”. Eisenstadt looks at migration as “the physical transition of an
individual or a group from one society to another this transition usually
involves abandoning one social setting and entering another and permanent one”.
But in this definition ha has failed to explain the psychology of individual or
groups who are shifting from one geographical location to another. As compared
to the above mentioned definitions of migration, definition of migration
suggested by Weinberg appears relatively flexible because he considered human
migration as the change of place permanently or temporarily for a particular
duration of time as in case of seasonal workers. If people maintain multiple
residences in city, town and village, then his frequency of movement will help
in deciding his status as a migrant. Even though many social scientists came
forward to discuss and define the concept of migration but some of them have
complicated its definition. But latest definitions of Zelinsky, Baker,
Hagerstrand, Rose, etc are worth mentioning According to Baker, “migration is
the act of moving from one spatial unit to another”. A broad area has been
covered by this definition and also it touches a large number of branches of
naturalists, social scientists, and others. Hagerstrand has studied the Swedish
migration fields and he has defined migration in terms of change in the centre
of gravity and has defined that an individual’s mobility depends upon the
change in the Centre of gravity, for example termini of journey to work,
recreational and shopping movements may remain same, while there will be change
in inter- urban move. Another person who gave a comprehensive definition of
migration was Arnold Rose. His definition establishes the relationship between
migration and the growth of population although indirectly. According to him,
migration does not add or subtract from the total population of world, but it
can have hand effect on the total population by involving the movement of
people from areas where they are likely to reproduce less to areas where they
are likely to reproduce more or vice versa In the study of movement of people
in Ghana, Fortes distinguishes mobility which he restricts to movement within
boundaries and migration in which person crosses borders. In Indian context,
this approach poses certain problems. Safa has expressed her view that
“Migration is normally viewed as an economic phenomenon though non economic
factors obviously have some bearing. Most studies concur that migrants leave
their area of origin primarily because of lack of employment opportunities and
with the hope of finding better opportunities elsewhere”.[4]
After evaluating all the definitions of different scholars we come to find out
that most of them have stressed upon time and space but socio- economic
repercussion had been ignored. After considering socio economic concept i.e.
consequences of socio economic migration, a new definition will be required
which will study three dimensions of human migration i.e. time, space and socio
economic implications. Therefore, migration can be defined as permanent or semi
permanent movement from one place to another which leads to culture diffusion
and social integration.
II.
There are two important terms
related to migration they are:
a.
Immigration:
immigration is when people move from other place to settle, such migrants are
called immigrants.
b.
Emigrant: Emigration is when people move
out to new places, and the migrants involved are called emigrants.[5]
III. There are different
forms of migration there are as follows:
a.
Intercontinental migration: It is when the movement is across continents, such as from
Korea (Asia) to Brazil (South America). If the movement is on the same
continent, it is intracontinental
migration. Sometimes, people migrate from one place to the other within
the same region, continent or country. This is also known as regional migration
or internal migration.[6]
b.
Rural-Urban Migration: This
involves the movement of people from rural areas or country sides to urban
areas of the same country in search of new opportunities and lifestyles.
c.
Long and
short-term migration: People
may consider migrating for good if the condition in their home is one that is
threatening. For example, people move for better health care if they have some
disease that requires some level of attention that can only be received in
another place. On the other hand, it may be temporal in nature. For example, a
person may study in another place, but may decide to stay and work for many
years before going back for good.
d. Impelled Migration (also called
reluctant or imposed migration): Here, no one is forced to migrate but due to some push
factors such as war, hunger and other difficult conditions, people decide to
leave.
e. Seasonal Migration: Sometimes people move during
specific seasons such as crop harvesting and climate to work and then go back
when the season is over.
f.
Return Migration: This
involves the voluntary return of migrants to their original place after they
outlive the reasons for which they left. Often times, young people who move
into the cities to work return home when they retire to spend the rest of their
lives in the quiet of their towns and with old friends and family.
g.
Forced or involuntary Migration: This is when the government or authorities of a place force
people to migrate for a reason.[7]
IV.
People migrate for a number of reasons. These
reasons may fall under these four areas: Environmental, Economic, Cultural and Socio-political. Within
that, the reasons may also be ‘push’ or ‘pull’ factors.
a. Push
Factors:Push factors are those that force the individual to move
voluntarily, and in many cases, they are forced because the individual risk
something if they stay. Push factors may include conflict, drought, famine, or
extreme religious activity. Poor economic activity and lack of job opportunities
are also strong push factors for migration. Other strong push factors include
race and discriminating cultures, political intolerance and persecution of
people who question the status quo.
b.
Pull Factors:Pull
factors are those factors in the destination country that attract the
individual or group to leave their home. Those factors are known as place
utility, which is the desirability of a place that attracts people. Better
economic opportunities, more jobs, and the promise of a better life often pull
people into new locations. Sometimes individuals have ideas and
perceptions about places that are not necessarily correct, but are strong pull
factors for that individual. As people grow older and retire, many look for
places with warm weather, peaceful and comfortable locations to spend their
retirement after a lifetime of hard work and savings. Such ideal places are
pull factors too.Very often, people consider and prefer opportunities closer to
their location than similar opportunities farther away. In the same vein,
people often like to move to places with better cultural, political, climatic
and general terrain in closer locations than locations farther away. It is rare
to find people move over very long distances to settle in places that they have
little knowledge of.[8]
V.
Causes of Migration
Migration is
affected by push and pulls factors. Push factors include lack of employment opportunities
and fears of disorder or of persecution on grounds of race, religion or
politics in
the areas people
live. Pull factors include favorable employment opportunities, good health
and educational
facilities, public order and freedom, and a favourable climate, particularly
for
the retirement
in the areas people move to. Some of the major causes as highlighted by the
present paper
are presented below:
a. Huge Population: India is known
for its huge demographic potential. It has huge
population which
is educated, English speaking, computer savvy and efficient. This is What is
required by developed economies because they lack in terms of working population.
Therefore, they attract Indian skilled labours by offering lucrative packages. India
on other hand fails to provide good working opportunities to this population.
This results in migration of skilled labours.
b. Rigid Education
System:
One of the important reasons why many students migrate to
Developed
nations are for higher education, because Indian educational system lacks the flexibility
which is the need of time. It offers rigid, stereotyped and traditional courses
with less or no scope of shifting or changes across the subjects, streams etc.
People follow a fixed mindset in opting for subjects, courses and careers. This
results in huge demand for some particular type of courses and professions.
There is huge commercialization of these courses which results in mushrooming
of institutes offering similar kind of courses; this further dilutes the
results and quality. The system lacks the format of standardization. Government
needs to take concrete measures to amalgamate Indian education system with
global to achieve uniformity and standardization and this is what is required
today to meet global manpower demand. There is a need to change the attitude of
students, parents also by counseling, suggestions and guidance.
c. Globalisation: In today’s
globalised and liberalized era there is no restriction on the
movement of capital,
goods, technology and information. In this context every country is trying to make a distinguished position in the World market. To
achieve this well trained man power is a must. In the fight for market shares
and under the pressure of growing global competitiveness, the developed
countries look for the best and brightest minds to win this battle. With a
well-educated and large workforce India is an important provider of
highly-skilled specialists for many developed economies including EU countries,
which have become increasingly popular destinations.
d. Increasing Consumerism: Consumerism means the growing wants and needs of an individual
for goods and services. India is one of the largest and fastest growing economies
in the world. The consumer’s standard of living is improving and hence his needs
are also increasing. Consumerism is justified in today’s age of globalization.
To fulfill this ever increasing and ever changing needs and wants people look
for better paid jobs which will provide better standard of living. Earning in
foreign currencies makes it possible.
e. Other factors: Many of the social, economic
and political factors also lead to migration. Political instability,
red-tapeism, poverty, economic depression, political chaos, rising crime,
crises and conflicts, corruption, family reasons, economic depression, low educational
standards and inadequate infrastructure are some of the factors which create insecurity
amongst the population that makes them leave their place of origin and migrate
to better place. The host country, on the other hand, offers rich opportunities, political stability and freedom, a developed economy and better
living conditions that attract talent. At the individual level, family influences,
personal preferences, career ambitions and other motivating factors can be considered.[9]When there is migration
happening, its effects are unavoidable some of the effects are as follows:
internal migration affects the place where from people migrate and the place to
which they migrate. When the migrants move from rural to urban areas, they have
both positive and negative effects on the society and economy.
VI.
Impact of Emigration
When people move
from place to place they make adjustments in their personal and socio-cultural lives.
It is difficult to ascertain the true social or economic benefits of their
mobility. Many factors affect calculation/analysis of benefits and costs
involved when people move from one place to another place. Firstly, we cannot
say that movements are always beneficial. Secondly, the advantages and
disadvantages of moving along are not symmetrical. Impact of migration is a
subject of change in terms of time and space. People were simply wandering from
one place to another in search of livelihood during early days and their life
was very simple. Impact of their migration was confined to primary activities.
The dimensions of impact of migration were broadened by the growth of
civilization from primary activity to secondary and finally tertiary activity. This
impact started to be seen on the other aspects of life also. Today the scenario
is as such that the migrants have started taking part in the social, economic,
and political activities of the place of destination. But this fact also
affects the place of origin. Migrants not only change the concerned places but
they also become the subject to change.
a.
Impact on
physical environment: mobility has
been exerting its influence on physical landscape right from the beginning of
human life. Intensity of impact changes temporally. In the wandering stage
people were confined to gathering eatables from the forests rather than
altering landscapes. Alterations started in landscape only when people started
realizing the importance of domestication of animals, agriculture, etc. Then
they started the process of deforestation of land to start agriculture and this
was first impact of migration on landscape. Initially people moved to fertile
plains with suitable climate. But as the population kept on increasing, people
started moving towards less fertile lands in mountainous region, plateaus, and
semi arid areas and hence they brought significant changes in the physical
landscape. People started cutting down forests in mountainous region to perform
terrace farming and also developed irrigation facilities. Similarly plateaus
were also used. Early migratory population molested plateaus. Accessible areas
were transformed into agricultural and pastoral lands. People reached here with
less difficulty. Impact of migration can easily be seen on semi-desert and
desert regions. Growing demands of people coupled with the development of
science and technology enabled people to inhabit areas which were otherwise
unsuitable for living. Also, in and out migrations in rural areas have considerable
impact on physical landscape. Landscape transformation is much more in urban
areas and industrial areas than rural areas. [10]
b.
Impact on
economic activity: impact of economic
activity can be seen on all aspects and stages of migration. Economic activity
plays a pivotal role in different stages of migration. People get motivated to
move from one place to another for differential economy and with a lust for economic
betterment. Migrants improve their economic status by getting better jobs at
the place of destination. Significant changes can be seen in agriculture at the
place of origin. During different phases of agricultural development impact of
migration on agriculture can be seen distinctly. Earlier due to lack of
permanent habitation people were practicing shifting agriculture, because of
this significant changes were brought in agricultural landscape. Also because
of migration, methods of agriculture were also affected. Methods such as
commercial farming, truck farming, dairy farming, etc, involved in shifting
agriculture underwent changes. Historical analysis of various crops and fruits
shows that they are not native of the place where they are grown now. Migrants
have brought them along with them from their places of origin. Plantations like
coffee, tea, and sugarcane were originally produced in Abyssinian highland,
China and India respectively. A change in resource utilization, technological
innovations, and industrial development can be seen as a consequence of
migration. Excessive migration encouraged people to tap all kinds of available
resources to fulfill their increasing demands. Trade activities are also
affected by the process of migration. For example, European movement towards
the different parts of the world was trade oriented. They established their
trade centers to gather raw materials.
People migrate
to improve their status by getting high salaried job, by involving themselves
in highly profitable business and developing agriculture. This leads to the
transformation of the economy of the area and finally per capita income of the
people increases. But out migration of skilled labour, finally proves to be a
hindrance in the way of economy of the region. Migration has its positive
effects in the way that it equalizes economic opportunities. There will be
availability of employment but lack of manpower in urban area, at the same time
there will be availability of manpower but lack of opportunities in the rural
areas, so this kind of imbalance is equalized by migration. Pressure on rural
lands is decreased by rural urban migration and power of rural savings
increases in rural areas.[11]
c. Impact on social conditions: impact of migration has been seen on different
aspects of social life right from the beginning of human civilization. This has
resulted in the social complexities and these complexities are well marked in
social structure, standard of living and socialization pattern. Social
structure is an essential framework of human relations. It refers to the
fundamental social relations because of which society gets its basic forms and
also it sets the limits of the action. An organized arrangement can be applied
to a town in a distinguished manner i.e. to the institutions, groups,
situations, processes, social positions etc. social structure constitutes
important social groups such as family, caste, class, marriage and religion.
All these groups‟ basics kept changing in the wake of migration. Family
structure has been affected immensely due to industrialization, growth of
scientific knowledge, and extensions of communications. Traditional joint family
started disintegrating because of people‟s migration from villages to the
cities, leading to a number of psychological, social and economic problems.
Size of family experienced changes due to rural urban migration and urbanized
composition. [12]
d. Impact on culture: before getting into the details of impact of
migration on culture, we should first be aware of culture and acculturation is human’s
behaviour and the way of carrying his
daily activities represent his culture. A culture consists of habits that are
shared by members of a particular society, whether it is a primitive tribe or a
civilized nation. The habits that are shared in a society fall into two major
headings i.e. termed as customs and collective ideas respectively. Modes of
behaviour such as etiquettes and the techniques of manipulating material
objects are included in customs. On the other hand, practical knowledge,
religious beliefs and social values comes under category of collective ideas.
Similarly, acculturation is a process of change in custom resulting from the
contact of people of different cultural backgrounds. An individual may like to
change his pattern of behaviour and activities. Transfer of culture and
acculturation has been seen in history a lot, as history is full of migration.
People not only move into a new place but they also bring with them their own
culture and try to maintain the same in their new environment. And in this
whole process the culture of the place of destination starts changing. These
changes can be observed in different elements of culture such as customs,
manners, dress, language, values, etc. There is a huge difference between
cultural attributes of people in rural areas from urban areas.[13]
VII. MODERN
PERIOD: Migration has experienced
changes in its trends and motivating factors in modern period. Mass movement
has been replaced by individual movements, moving out for economic settlement
or temporary work. Government policies have controlled modern migrations to a
large extent. International and Intercontinental migrations have been increased
between 15th and 17th centuries.[14]
VII. RECENT PERIOD: Migration of this period can be broadly divided into two categories
i.e. forced or involuntary and willing or voluntary. These two types have
occurred world over. Developing nations during recent years have experienced a
new migration trend due to decolonization movement. When all the countries got
liberation they started exploiting natural resources, developing infra
structure, etc. this led to the growth and establishment of urban centers.
Developing nations of Asia have experienced considerable internal migration in
the form of rural urban migration and rural rural migration. Inter regional
migration was caused by unbalanced regional development. In highly
industrialized nations major urban centers hardly provide peaceful atmosphere
to peace loving people. People sometimes become disguised with very busy life
of urban city centers and they prefer to move to nearby rural areas, from where
they can commute to their work on daily basis. This trend has given rise to
urban rural migration in developed nations in recent years[15]
Conclusion:
The phenomenon
of migration is not a recent discovery as an object of study. Long time ago, it
drew the attention of many researchers who belonged to diverse fields
(demography experts, sociologists, geographers, economists). Each of them analyzed
it from his own perspective, so they diverged one from another, each of them elaborating
schemes and theories as explanations of the process. For whatever period of
time we might look at, the movement across territories was caused by various motivations,
and was carried on with different intensity. There are a lot of perspectives
from which the phenomenon of migration might be explained, because it raises a
wide range of issues. Though commonly known as the mobility of populations
across territories, migration is not confined to simple movements in space. On
the contrary, it is a much more complex process. In order to solve its
equation, a lot of elements should be taken into account. What every its
consequences may be, it cannot be stopped. Migration today is in a large scale,
if we have an Arial view in imagination about the people migrating we might
probably see the whole world unrest people in mass movement everywhere.
Migration is a challenge to many countries today, thus many rule, regulation
and measures are been put forward to stop this, but it is not possible. Thus
what I feel the challenge in the process is, about the safety of the people in
the process of migration.
Emigration From Kandebash,
Baglung, Nepal
[2] The Department
of Homeland Security’s Definition of Terms
(http://www.dhs.gov/files/statistics/stdfdef.shtm)Learn how the U.S. DHS
defines immigrant, asylee, etc.
[3] Biochemical and Biophysical Research CommunicationsVolume 256, Issue 3, 24
March 1999, Pages 608-613 Regular Article
The Immediate Early Gene Products of Human Cytomegalovirus Increase Vascular
Smooth Muscle Cell Migration, Proliferation, and Expression of PDGF β-Receptor
[4] Concept
and Theories of Migration: An in-Depth Understanding,
[5] https://writingexplained.org/immigrate-vs-emigrate-what-are-the-differences, 7/13/2018, 2:23 p.m.
[6] working Paper Continental vs.
intercontinental migration An empirical analysis of the impacts of immigration
reforms on Burkina Faso, West and Centrial Africa.
[7] World Migration Report 2011.
Communicating effectively about migration, International Organization for
Migration
[8] The Migration Observatory.
Briefings, http://www.migrationobservatory.ox.ac.uk/briefing
[9] The Business
& Management Review, Volume 5 Number 4, Migration: causes and effects
Smita
Dubey Saket
College of Arts, Science & Commerce, Kalyan, India Varsha Mallah
Bhavan’s
H Somani College, Mumbai, India
[10] Concept and Theories of Migration: An in-Depth Understanding, 146.
[11] Concept and Theories of Migration: An in-Depth Understanding, 147
[12] Concept and Theories of Migration: An in-Depth Understanding, 148
[13] Concept and Theories of Migration: An in-Depth Understanding, 149.
[14] Migration and
inclusive societies. UNESCO,
http://www.unesco.org/new/en/social-and-human-sciences/themes/international-migration//
7/13/2108, 3:57 p.m.
[15]Migration and
inclusive societies. UNESCO, http://www.unesco.org/new/en/social-and-human-sciences/themes/international-migration/
7/13/2108, 3:57 p.m.
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