The Age of Migration: International Population Movements in the Modern, Essay Example

Refugee

As stated in the UNHCR statute, refugees are individuals who flee their country of origin for feared persecution, violence, conflict, and any other reason that affects public order, thus requiring international protection. International migration has become a theme for several researchers to determine the implications of the exercise. It is vital to use the concept of refugees to find precise statistics on how migration has been happening and to what density. According to Castles ( 1998,p.11), migration is shaped by similar forces of transformation within the economic and social context affecting societies despite regional differences. Refugees have been a reference to several studies starting from the first studies that emerged in the early 1980s where the study has moved from being a concern to a small to group to a larger group of scholars and policy analysts interested in the subject. Today, the field encompasses rigorous action-based research and academic research concerned with advocating for the refugee’s rights and needs. Through this, it is evident that international migration ethics research has played a major role since it believes that humanity should be acknowledged despite any finding and conclusions of individuals moving. Here, all the discussions should be honest where affected communities should be addressed with collective humanity.

Push and pull theory

Push and pull theory best describes the movement of individuals from place to place. According to the theory, the reason for immigration and migration is that individuals can improve their living conditions. In this regard, the force that influences individuals in disturbed communities to find better living conditions is the pull force of floating migration. The unfavorable social and economic reasons in the inflow areas that influence migration become the thrust force of the floating population. The accomplishment of migration involves the combined effect of the given push and pulls forces. Push and pull theory is essential in the research for migration since it guides the researchers to understand the reasons that led to the fleeing of a community, be it social, political, economic, and environmental factors. The pull factors of the theory that attract people to a new home could act as a basis of reference when finding solutions on interventions that could inhibit movement. The push and pull theory is significant when understanding te migration within broader political and economic contexts. For instance, if migration from third-world countries is exhibited as a result of economic problems caused by the economy globally, such a migration could be resolved by adjusting international financial agreements rather than imposing restrictive immigration laws (Pisarevskaya, 2020, p.2). In addition, the research on migration has kept the pace of the growing instances of migration and increased the attention of nation-states regarding control of migration.

The Proliferation of migration transition

Migration transition could be described as the change in migration patterns within a society. The pattern change may be caused by several factors, including population growth, industrialization, and other socioeconomic factors that develop a demographic transition. Through international migration ethics research, the effects of the proliferation of migration transition could be highlighted to help policymakers develop detailed measures to fight unhealthy immigration. Migration transition consists of five stages, including the pre-industrial stage where high fertility and mortality while mobility is limited to circular migration. The early transitional stage has reduced mortality rates due to an increase in food production and the movement experiences all over. The third is the late transitional stage, where international migration is low. However, the rural to urban migration is still highly advanced society sees increased migration due to skills perspective where net immigration of unskilled and skilled labor is experienced. Lastly is the super-advanced community where the immigration of laborers continues. The rapid growth of migration transition is mainly influenced by the development of many countries regarding the economy. The increase in demographic population in the developed countries is due to technology that has dramatically reduced the mortality rates compared to pre traditional stage of migration transition, where the population growth increased with the increase in deaths.

Human capital theory

The human capital theory argues that human beings can improve their production capacity through skills training and education. Human capital migration is viewed as an investment in human agent that involves costs and returns in the migration context. In this regard, families decide to migrate if they believe that the cost of their migration will pay off by achieving more significant opportunities unavailable at home. The said opportunities could include jobs that present financial returns or education, which improves one’s skills. Research indicates that migration and education attainment is connected, whereby the higher the education attainments, the greater the migration to such environments. This can be explained further by the fact that low education mainly involves family and friends of the same background. Still, in higher levels of education, individuals are forced to leave their parental home to other environments since the facilities for higher education are concentrated. The importance of human capital theory to IMER is that it provides a basis for understanding the significant effects of migration. For instance, human capital migration in western education is most influential since it stresses the significance of education and training in helping to fuel the global economy. With such a perspective, the immigration and migration of individuals based on human capital theory could be helpful to the people and a country in general.

References

Castles, S., 1998. The age of migration: International population movements in the modern

Pisarevskaya, A., Levy, N., Scholten, P. and Jansen, J., 2020. Mapping migration studies: An empirical analysis of the coming of age of a research field. Migration Studies, 8(3), pp.455-481.