Migration 101 Episode 10

Episode 10: Is migration good, bad, or normal? 

• Migration is normal, not a problem to be solved.
• It has always been part of human experience, a fundamental feature.
• Everyone's ancestors at some point moved from rural areas to cities (urbanization, industrialization, modernization).
• Without migration, there would be no cities, and no industrialization.
• Migration is driven by societal changes such as the structure of the labor market.
• People move to be with family, to find appropriate work for their skills, etc.
• We forget that migration is a fact of human existence and start believing that we can control it with changes in migration policy. We can't control it.
• Development/change = > migration

Recommended Reading

Hein has collated much of the material covered in this course in this blog post, titled Human Migration: Myths, Hysteria and Facts. If you prefer video, watch his inaugural lecture at Maastricht University.

With the increasing generation of wealth (in the form of economic growth), continued urbanisation is inevitable, this paper argues. There is, however, a lack of evidence to suggest that urbanisation per se leads to economic growth.

Are you teaching a unit related to migration, or do you think you’re up for exploring more? This is a list of documentaries, youtube videos, online projects, and resourcescompiled by Hein and his network of migration researchers.

This resource bank, compiled by the UK’s Migration Museum project, is excellent and searchable by age and topic.

Visit the International Migration Institute’s paper series for 132 free downloads of state-of-the-art migration research.