What is immigration?

Immigration is when new people are introduced into a new population or habitat. It is actually a biological concept and is actually pretty important in matters that involve population ecology, emigration and migration. There are quite a few reasons why people decide to continue with their immigration concerns, they are able to do so through push and pull factors.

Push factors

Push factors mainly refer to the motive that the emigration was done in the first place, from the person’s original country. With regards to economic migration, which usually means labor migration, there are very prominent differentials in the rate of the wage, especially in first world countries. In fact, most wage values in first world countries get to surpass the usual wage value in a person’s native country. And when this occurs, that particular person has the right to decide whether to migrate or not, given that the costs for traveling are not too costly.

Economic expansion

It was in nineteenth century that the economy largely expanded in the United States of America. It is because of this growth in the economy that the flow of immigrants also increased. In fact, nearly twenty percent of today’s US population was born in a foreign country.

Immigration to first world countries

Immigrants who came from less developed nations may have more opportunities for much higher standards of living once they finally transfer to first world nations. The costs needed to be covered, which include implicit costs, explicit costs, lost work time, ticket price, and the loss of community connections also play such a huge role in the reasons why most poor third world immigrants decide not to continue with their venture.

It is a good thing that between the eighteenth and the twentieth century, the technology for transportation improved the costs and the time required for travel significantly increased. Back then, travel time cross the Atlantic Ocean usually took five weeks, particularly in the 1700s. However, come the 1900s and it only took as short as eight days.

Basically, when the opportunity costs are lower, then the rates of immigration will become higher. The need to get away from poverty is a highly traditional push factor, while the availability of lots of job is a pull factor. Moreover, disasters that are caused naturally can aggravate migration flows that are primarily driven by poverty.

Reasons for immigration

First of all, the main reason why many decide to transfer to first world countries is because it is a fact and part of human nature that those who live in poorer places will always seek to transfer to much richer ones. Secondly, many, even experts, find it highly difficult to explain the emergence of today’s migrant flows. Thirdly, the stability of the emerging patterns of migration still cannot be explained. In fact, this aforementioned stability will be staying for a long time even if the push and pull factors involved are not present anymore, just like what happened in Germany, in the case of Gastarbeiter or other guest worker program shows.