When the word migration is said, what are some things that automatically come to mind? For me, I think about the American dream, the sacrifices being made in order to obtain a better reality. Drifting away from potentially impoverished, unemployed, malnourished conditions. Everyone is ultimately striving for more and more, especially when one does not have abundant opportunities, food, and economic freedom to provide for themselves, let alone an entire family. 

     De Haas mentions a theory that revolves around a “push-pull method”; this method states that people are “pushed” out of their home countries due to negative extrinsic factors such as job scarcity, political or religious persecutions, natural disasters, etc. Yet De Haas makes a strong point by mentioning how there is never one sole reason influencing the migration process, it is a much more complex, interconnected force that gives rise to migrants “pushing” out of their country, and “pulling” into another. He says, “It is thus difficult to strictly separate economic from social, cultural and political causes of migration” (De Haas, 2010, p. 43). He explains how migration is molded into a macro and micro level, which I will further evaluate in this blog.

     The migration process involves more than just one’s aspirations, dreams, and hope for a better future. It involves the recognition of macro level elements such as institutional factors like the labor market patterns, initiatives that control migration, and the policies in place that serve as the foundation for migrants to climb up against. Aside from macro level elements, there are micro level relationships that guide migrants’ journeys. This is more of what we are commonly used to hearing; a migrant’s personal deep rooted aspirations, beliefs, traditional aspects, gender, age, and in general just personal characteristics within one’s household. Both of these drivers play a critical role in a migrants decision making process that ultimately determines their future, and a lot of the time these are things that people who have never migrated outside of their country, will never grasp or fully comprehend. All these micro and macro factors push people out of their country, and pull them into their destination country. What makes this idea so complex is the fact that these factors that are said to motivate some individuals, may inspire others to stay or attract newcomers from other countries. This comes to show that the push-pull model is very much oversimplified in terms of depicting why people decide not to migrate, or why some decide to stay. Humans respond differently to the same situations dependent on their distinct viewpoints, ambitions, and objectives. 

     I want to further pick apart how the notion of push-pull factors are more psychologically motivated instead of solely being influenced by external factors that then create a pressure need for change. In a journal written on youth studies related to migrational aspirations, Christof Van Mol states, “Aspirations point to mental processes that affect ideas, wishes and preoccupations of individuals, and ‘can be expressed in behavioral and conscious psychological ways” (Van Mol, 2016, p. 1304). How someone internalizes and processes their own experiences, hardships, and motivations heavily relies on one’s cognitive response and internal locus. That is why many people who have never had to migrate, or contemplate migrating have difficulty understanding the migration process with more than a superficial understanding. Thus, leaving room for stereotypical, surface level assumptions based on just economical or social circumstances. Hence why the migration process is more complex than just a “push and pull” model. The variability within individuals is unexplainable and not always as straightforward as we believe it to be. 

     To sum everything up, migration is much more complex than the simple “push-pull” concept implies. Despite potential external variables such as political unrest, economic or social hardship that force people to leave their homes, their actions also play a large role influencing their goals, feelings, and views. Migration is an extremely intimate process that is impacted by cognitive functions related to situational factors and outside forces. Due to this complexity, most average individuals have difficulty comprehending the migration process. So, the next time you are approaching anything related to why people migrate, it is important to be sympathetic behind the reasoning of people’s life altering decisions, and the psychological factors that contribute to it. 

Citations

The Age of Migration: International Population Movements in the Modern World, by Stephen Castles, Hein de Haas and Mark J. Miller. (2015). Ethnic and Racial Studies, 38(13), 2355. https://doi.org/10.1080/01419870.2015.1050048

Van Mol, C. (2016). Migration aspirations of European youth in times of crisis. Journal of Youth Studies, 19(10), 1303–1320. https://doi.org/10.1080/13676261.2016.1166192