MIG - Distribution of Migration Lesson
Distribution of Migration
Introduction
- Migration streams create patterns of migration around the world
- Spatial interaction examines how people and ideas move between, and within, areas of the world
- Migration can create voluntary immigrants, but also has negative effects by creating:
- Internally displaced people are forced from their home regions due to conflict, however they remain within their home country
- Countries in Northern and sub-Saharan Africa and Asia (Southwest, South and Southeast Asia)
- Refugees are forced from their home nation to avoid persecution
- Many people leave their countries looking for asylum in countries that will grant them refugee status
- There are over 10 million refugees worldwide
This map illustrates countries that have net-in migration (blue) or net-out migration (brown). Refugees will often seek to move to more developed countries, but distance and political issues can make this difficult.
Global Patterns
- Most people move from MDCs to LDCs in search of jobs and resources
- Three largest migration streams:
- Asia to Europe
- Asia to North America
- Latin America to North America
- Nations in North America, Oceania and Europe have net-in migration
- The US has the highest number of foreign born residents – around 10% of the total population of the country
- Canada and Australia have higher percentages of immigrants compared to the US
- Countries in all regions of Asia, Africa and Latin America have net-out migration
- The Middle East has the highest percentage of immigrants in the world
- Most are moving from other Middle Eastern countries, or from South and Southeast Asia, in search of jobs
US Migration Patterns
- US migration is divided into three major eras:
- Colonization Migration (one nation establishing ownership in different territory)
- European Migration
- Migration from less developed countries
- The US government began establishing quotas, limitations, on immigrants in the early 20th century (although the earliest attempts to limit migration began in the 19th century)
- The goal was to slow the immigration of Europeans and restrict poor immigrants from regions of Asia and Latin America
- Forced migration by the US government has occurred twice:
- Slavery from Africa (mostly Western Africa)
- Native American tribes
- 1830 Indian Removal Act/Trail of Tears
Migration during Colonization
- Prior to the establishment of the nation in 1776, over one million immigrants had moved to the colonies
- Another million moved between our nationhood and the beginning of the Civil War (1861)
- Most came from the United Kingdom
- Almost 500,000 slaves were brought from Africa through forced migration
European Immigration
- In the early 19th and 20th centuries over 75 million people emigrated from European nations
- British to the US, Australia, New Zealand and South Africa
- Spanish and Portuguese to Central America (including the Caribbean) and South America
- Three waves to the United States from Europe
- Irish and Germans escaping persecution and economic hardships in the 1840s and 1850s
- Western Europeans and Scandinavians during the height of the Industrial Revolution in the US (1870s - 1890s)
- Southern and Eastern Europeans during the time between 1900 and 1910 looking for manufacturing jobs and economic opportunities
IMAGES CREATED BY GAVS (Images are available in the Public Domain via Wikimedia Commons; Creative Commons License Attribution)