Movers & Places
Migrants move away from these places, which are their current places of residence.
Origins
All migrants moving from one origin to one destination in a time period form this.
Migration stream
People outside their country with a well-founded fear of persecution.
Refugees
People from the northern U.S. or Canada who spend winters in warmer states or Mexico.
Snowbirds
This German-English geographer proposed the eleven “laws of migration.”
Ernst Georg Ravenstein
Aspects of a place that compel people to leave
Push factors
Part of a migrant’s earnings sent back home to family.
Remittances
This official document shows a person is a lawful permanent resident.
A green card.
The UN estimated this many people lived outside their country of origin in 2024.
304 million
The broad concept covering all human geographic movement, from commuting to moving abroad.
Spatial Mobility
Migrants move from their origins to these places.
Destinations
The movement of migrants in the opposite direction of a main stream.
People forced from their homes who remain within their own country’s borders.
internally displaced persons (IDPs)
Moving from a nearby town to a larger city to the final destination in incremental steps
Stepwise migration
The loss of young, educated, skilled people from a place through migration.
Brain drain
Attributes of a place that draw people to it.
Pull factors
This theory says migration moves labor from low-wage to high-wage areas until wages equalize
The macroadjustment theory
Congress passed this act in 1980 to adopt the UN definition of a refugee.
Refugee Act of 1980
This Chinese household registration system worked like an internal passport.
Castles and Miller call the period since the late twentieth century this.
“Age of Migration”
Moves into a place make up this.
in-migration
In-migrants minus out-migrants is called
net migration
A small town’s economy collapses and people move though they would have preferred to stay, so this type of move is called this.
Reluctant migration
One group of migrants is followed by others from the same origin, creating ethnic neighborhoods like Chinatowns.
Chain migration
The opposite of brain drain, where a place gains migrants’ skills and experience.
Brain gain
This sociologist developed the push-pull theory in 1966.
Everett S. Lee
This model treats migration as an investment based on anticipated future returns.
Human capital model
Eisenhower’s name for the 1956 effort to admit Hungarian refugees.
Operation Safe Haven
Moves within the same metropolitan area, usually for housing reasons.
Intraurban mobility
This type of mobility is movement up or down a social hierarchy, as opposed to geographic movement.
Social mobility
People who move out of a particular place are called this
out-migrants
Migration flows tend to concentrate in certain directions instead of being random, a tendency known as this.
Directional bias
Countries that ratified the Refugee Convention should not send refugees back against their will, according to this principle
Non-refoulement
Estimates suggest this type of migration may account for over sixty percent of migration stream events
Repeat migration
The relationship between age and migration intensity, which peaks around age 25.
Migration age profile (schedule)
Distance and legal restrictions are examples of Lee’s term for barriers that migrants must overcome.
Intervening obstacles
The new economics of labor migration (NELM) sees migration as this, meant to diversify income and reduce risk.
Household strategy
This New Jersey site was the central processing point for Hungarian refugees.
Camp Kilmer
The U.S. internal migration rate hit this historic low in 2021.
8.4%
These two U.S. surveys ask where people lived one or five years ago
ACS and the CPS
People who leave a country are given this name.
Emigrants
In 2023, about 71,138 New Yorkers moved to this state, and only 24,749 moved the other way.
Florida
Filing Form I-589 with USCIS makes a person this
An asylum seeker
Migrants build up savings, skills, and social networks in a neighboring country before their final destination. This is known as this.
Migrant capital
This is the only one of Ravenstein’s laws that no longer holds true today
“urban dwellers are less migratory than rural people” (the fifth law)
The unwillingness to leave a familiar place because of attachment and sense of belonging.
Cumulative inertia
Piore’s dual labor market theory says immigrants fill jobs in this sector.
Secondary sector
The 1965 Immigration and Nationality Act allowed this percentage of immigrants to enter as refugees
6%
The Sudan war pits the Sudanese Armed Forces against this paramilitary group.
The Rapid Support Forces (RSF)
In Zelinsky’s mobility transition, this stage is the most mobile.
Early transitional societies