Migration is defined as the movement of people from one region to another permanently or temporarily. There are several types of migration. There two main are classes of migration; external migration/international that occurs across bounders of a state, and internal migration that occur with bounders of a state.
The people who move out of the country are called emigrants while those who move into a country are called immigrants. Therefore, immigration is the movement of people into a country, while emigration is the movement of people out of the country. Seasonal migration refers to seasonal movement of people for reasons as schooling, tourism, and other related seasonal social reasons and events.
Under the broad categories of migration, we have four other migration subclasses. The first is rural-urban migration. This entails people migrating from the rural areas to urban areas either with the country or internationally. For example, one can move from the countryside of Kansas to Kansas town or one can move from Africa rural area and settle in Washington DC. It mainly involves job seekers comprising of the young graduates from the education system. The second is the urban-rural migration. This involves people migrating from the cities to the rural areas within a state or internationally. It mostly involves retirees or the people who had not established permanent homes in the cities. For example, one can move out of Washington DC and settle in the country side after retiring. The third is the urban-urban migration. It is a migration that is described as intercity exchange. It entails people moving from one city to another. The bulk of this migration is of transfers employees or people seeking to expand their business in the new cities. Most international immigrant settle in the cities due to the economic benefits associated with the cities (Malgesini, 2006). The last is the rural-rural migration that involves movement of people from one rural area to another. It involves mainly pastoralist in African regions and other farmers or settlers.
What causes migration? There are mainly two reasons that induce movement of the people from one region to another. These are broadly classified as push and pull factors. The push factors are the factors that force people to want to move out of certain regions. These include economic factors as lack of employment, natural disasters such as earthquakes, recurrent floods, and lower living standards. They also include social factors as lack of proper healthcare, inadequate education opportunities, lack of religious tolerance, etc. The push factors also entail political factors such as war and terrorism, disenfranchisement or unfair legal systems. Most of the mentioned push factors are found in sub-Saharan Africa, especially political instability prompting the American government to award many asylum seekers permanent residence in America (Teacher background notes).
The pull factors are the factors that attract the immigrants into certain area or country. These include; economic factors as hope of getting employment, expansion of business, better shelter and higher living standards. Social factors also attract immigrants. They may include provision of better healthcare, education facilities, religious tolerance, and sexuality tolerance, among others. There are also political pull factors such as political tolerance and stability. For example, most states in America are more developed that African countries, the same applies to Europe. The political status is also much stable than those of the African countries. Therefore, these regions are attractive to most Africans. This explains why there are so many cases of people drowning in the Mediterranean Sea in their attempt to sneak into Europe for hope of employment, better living standards, etc. using small boats.
Work cited
Malgesini, G. immigrants from urban to rural areas in Spain: the impact of transnationalism 2006.
