# Contemporary Migration

Sociology I · Contemporary Social Processes · https://tryals.app/learn/sociology-i/contemporary-migration

## Why People Move

**Ernst Ravenstein** formulated the earliest migration laws in 1885. Later **push–pull** models built on this idea, treating movement as individual rational choices. However, these models predict real flows poorly.

Three stronger theories explain contemporary movement:

- The **new economics of labour migration**: households send members abroad to diversify risk and secure remittances.
- **Dual labour market theory**: advanced economies hold a permanent demand for low-wage labour that natives reject.
- A migrant **network** lowers costs for later arrivals, making migration flows self-sustaining.

| Assumption | Reality |
|---|---|
| Poorest people move most | Movement rises with initial development |
| Most displaced reach the West | Most stay in neighbouring low-income states |
| Migrants are most of humanity | Migrants make up under 4 per cent of global population |

This creates the **migration hump**. As low-income societies develop, resources rise and emigration increases before eventually falling.

## Integration and Demographics

**Spain** illustrates rapid demographic change. Foreign nationals now comprise **13 per cent** of the population, whereas people **born abroad** make up **18 per cent**. This 13 to 18 gap exists because many acquire Spanish nationality.

After arrival, migrants follow distinct settlement paths:

- **John Berry** identified four acculturation strategies based on cultural maintenance and host-society participation.
- **Portes and Zhou** showed that assimilation is segmented into different social strata rather than a single mainstream.
- **Transnationalism** captures how migrants sustain active cross-border ties rather than cutting home connections.

> **Common pitfall:** Confusing different measures of migration. Foreign birth and foreign citizenship measure distinct groups, creating large statistical gaps.

## Practice questions

9 of this lesson's 15 practice questions, with answers. The full set is in the app.

### 1. Arrange these contributions to the study of migration, earliest first.

**Answer:**

1. Ravenstein sets out his laws of migration
2. Piore publishes Birds of Passage
3. Stark and Bloom set out the new economics of labour migration
4. Portes and Zhou describe segmented assimilation
5. Spain becomes a country of net immigration
6. Global forced displacement passes one hundred million on UNHCR figures

**Why:** The century-long gap after Ravenstein is not an accident of scholarship. Migration theory was thin for as long as the phenomenon was treated as a simple response to wage differences; the burst of work from the late 1970s follows the discovery that flows persisted when the differentials that supposedly caused them narrowed.

Page: https://tryals.app/practice/sociology-i/contemporary-migration/arrange-these-contributions-to-the-study-of-migration-earliest-first

### 2. Emigration rates tend to rise as a very poor country becomes richer, before falling again at higher income levels.

**Answer:** True

**Why:** **True.** Moving internationally requires money, documents, information and contacts, all of which rise with development. Desire and capacity increase together, so emigration climbs from very low income levels and falls only much later, which is why aid intended to reduce departures usually increases them first.

Page: https://tryals.app/practice/sociology-i/contemporary-migration/emigration-rates-tend-to-rise-as-a-very-poor-country-becomes-richer

### 3. Which observations does the simple push–pull model fail to account for?

A. International migrants make up only a small fraction of the world’s population
B. Destination economies show durable demand for labour in jobs natives decline at the going wage
C. Flows persist along established corridors long after the original cause has weakened
D. Households send one member and receive remittances rather than relocating together

**Answer:** B. Destination economies show durable demand for labour in jobs natives decline at the going wage; C. Flows persist along established corridors long after the original cause has weakened; D. Households send one member and receive remittances rather than relocating together

**Why:** Each of the first three motivated one of the successor theories: networks explain persistence, dual labour market theory explains structural demand, and the new economics explains the household strategy behind remittances. The fourth is true and important but it is a magnitude, not something push–pull gets wrong.

Page: https://tryals.app/practice/sociology-i/contemporary-migration/which-observations-does-the-simple-push-pull-model-fail-to-account

### 4. Complete the account of the theories that replaced simple push and pull.

**Answer:** The new economics of labour migration makes the decision unit the **household** rather than the individual, which explains why remittances flow back. Dual labour market theory locates the cause in persistent **demand** in destination economies for work natives decline. Network theory explains why corridors become **self-sustaining**, since each migrant lowers the cost for the next. Berry’s framework crosses cultural maintenance with contact to give assimilation, integration, separation and **marginalisation**.

**Why:** The three mechanisms operate at different levels, household strategy, destination labour demand, and the accumulated structure of past movement, and they are complementary rather than rival. A full account of any corridor usually needs all three, which is why single-cause explanations of a particular flow are almost always incomplete.

Page: https://tryals.app/practice/sociology-i/contemporary-migration/complete-the-account-of-the-theories-that-replaced-simple-push-and

### 5. Dual labour market theory locates the primary driver of migration in destination economies rather than countries of origin. What does this distinction imply for policymakers attempting to curb inflows purely through origin-country development aid?

A. Aid accelerates migration primarily by funding initial transit across borders
B. Aid will permanently redirect labour demand toward higher-wage domestic sectors
C. Aid only reduces movement once origin households achieve full risk diversification
D. Aid cannot stem inflows driven by structural shortages in destination sectors

**Answer:** D. Aid cannot stem inflows driven by structural shortages in destination sectors

**Why:** Targeting origin incomes misses the point: dual labour market theory argues that advanced economies generate an intrinsic structural demand for low-wage labour. Misattributing causes to origin-side household risk or transit funding conflates distinct frameworks.

Page: https://tryals.app/practice/sociology-i/contemporary-migration/dual-labour-market-theory-locates-the-primary-driver-of-migration-in

### 6. Arrange the stages of the migration hump as income at origin rises.

**Answer:**

1. At very low incomes almost no household can finance an international move
2. Rising income, schooling and connectivity increase both the desire and the means to move
3. Emigration rates climb as capacity catches up with aspiration
4. Networks established by early movers lower costs and sustain the flow
5. At high income levels the incentive to leave weakens and emigration rates fall

**Why:** The policy conclusion is uncomfortable and well established: development assistance aimed at reducing departures operates on the rising limb of this curve for decades. That does not make the assistance wrong; it makes the stated objective wrong, and confusing the two has produced a great deal of disappointed policy.

Page: https://tryals.app/practice/sociology-i/contemporary-migration/arrange-the-stages-of-the-migration-hump-as-income-at-origin-rises

### 7. Push–pull models and network models disagree about why flows begin and why they persist. Sort each explanation by the model it belongs to.

**Answer:**

- Push–pull models: Flows are predicted to track wage differentials between countries, Migration should stop when the original differential closes
- Networks and cumulative causation: Each departure lowers the cost and risk of the next from the same place, Corridors persist after the conditions that opened them have changed

**Why:** The second column is the better fit for the observed geography of migration, which is village-to-neighbourhood rather than country-to-country. Push–pull predicts a diffuse response to aggregate differentials; what the data show is dense, specific corridors that outlive their causes, which is exactly what accumulated social capital would produce.

Page: https://tryals.app/practice/sociology-i/contemporary-migration/push-pull-models-and-network-models-disagree-about-why-flows-begin

### 8. In which year did Ravenstein publish the paper setting out his laws of migration?

**Answer:** 1885

**Why:** **1885**, based on British census data on birthplace. The laws themselves, that most moves are short, that migration proceeds in steps, that each flow generates a counter-flow, are still broadly supported; what has not survived is the individualist decision model later built on top of them.

Page: https://tryals.app/practice/sociology-i/contemporary-migration/in-which-year-did-ravenstein-publish-the-paper-setting-out-his-laws

### 9. The share of Spain’s population holding foreign nationality and the share born abroad are effectively the same figure.

**Answer:** False

**Why:** **False.** Recent INE figures put foreign nationals at roughly 13 per cent and the foreign-born at roughly 18 per cent, a five-point gap created by naturalisation and by children born in Spain to migrant parents who hold Spanish nationality. Which measure is quoted changes the size of "the immigrant population" substantially.

Page: https://tryals.app/practice/sociology-i/contemporary-migration/the-share-of-spains-population-holding-foreign-nationality-and-the