Reasons For Migration In The 21st Century: Human Migration

Migration: Economic or Political

Human migration used to be simple - people migrated either when their food/resources became scarce or when they despised their leader. However, as migration and globalisation slowly become reality, there are now a variety of different reasons to migrate. This essay will discuss the most prominent reason for migration in the 21st century: economic or political. These two main reasons for migration are the driving force of our globalising world.

Well-famed singer Cabaret once sang “Money makes the world go round!”; and it does “literally” make the world go round. Millions of people migrate each year due to economic reasons - but most commonly for jobs/opportunities. After World War II, a large amount of Polynesians

Many countries face country-wide poverty (usually due to a corrupt government). The Irish Potato Famine is one famous example, where a large amount of Irish migrated out of Ireland, due to a virus which caused potatoes to decay. Potatoes were Ireland’s stable food and cheap crop, and without potatoes, the country went into deep poverty. Most Irish migrated to America; ultimately creating the America we know today. While migration due to country-wide poverty is not as common as before, it has a wide impact on our world and is still occurring

Surprisingly, however, many countries in the past and present do not have such freedoms. This ultimately leads to migration to a freer society. After World War II, many people migrated from East Berlin to West Berlin (and therefore West Germany) due to the political freedoms and democracy in the West, unlike in the East. With an influx of refugees migrating to West Germany, the communist East German regime (ruled by the Soviet Union) erected a wall to prevent people from migrating. This very example highlights how political migration can happen in such a large scale - to even where a wall is necessary to blockade the amount of people migrating. Formerly, China pursued a policy where families were only allowed to have one child, therefore leading to many Chinese migrating out of China due to restrictions of freedom and birth. Freedoms are a vital right of humans, which when not received can result in massive migration; the case in East