Mass Migration, Causes and Consequences.
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- Date Submitted: 03/12/2011 02:00 PM
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Mass migration, causes and consequences.
We usually distinguish between two types of mass migration: forced and voluntary mass migration. Slavery trade is an example of the forced type. However, we are going to focus here on the voluntary mass migration to the New World during the 19th century.
A huge number of Europeans lift their homes and decided to immigrate into the New World during the 19th century. In their book, Globalization and History, the authors wrote that “about 60 million Europeans set sail for the resource-abundant and labor-scarce in the New World in the century following 1820”. Three fifths went to the US though there were significant flows to South America after the mid 1880s, led by Argentina and Brazil, and to Canada after the turn of the century. Many moved to escape religious or political persecution, but most moved to escape European poverty. Most of them moved under their own initiative. Then, declining time and financial costs of passage, augmented family resources generated by economic development at home, and financial help from previous emigrant’s remittances would all serve to change these conditions as the century progressed.
Early 1800 migrant streams were often led by farmers and rural artisans, traveling in family groups, intent on acquiring land and settling permanently at the New World. Nevertheless, in the late 19th century emigrants were increasingly drawn from urban areas and non agricultural occupations. Migrants were typically young adults dominated by individual males. Thus the migrants carried very high labor force participation rates to the New World. The typical migrant was unskilled because they were young which reflected his limited schooling and training in skilled trades.
It appears that those who emigrated had more to gain from the move than the population as a whole, and they were likely to be more responsive to labor market conditions. This could be explained by explaining the determinants of emigration....
We usually distinguish between two types of mass migration: forced and voluntary mass migration. Slavery trade is an example of the forced type. However, we are going to focus here on the voluntary mass migration to the New World during the 19th century.
A huge number of Europeans lift their homes and decided to immigrate into the New World during the 19th century. In their book, Globalization and History, the authors wrote that “about 60 million Europeans set sail for the resource-abundant and labor-scarce in the New World in the century following 1820”. Three fifths went to the US though there were significant flows to South America after the mid 1880s, led by Argentina and Brazil, and to Canada after the turn of the century. Many moved to escape religious or political persecution, but most moved to escape European poverty. Most of them moved under their own initiative. Then, declining time and financial costs of passage, augmented family resources generated by economic development at home, and financial help from previous emigrant’s remittances would all serve to change these conditions as the century progressed.
Early 1800 migrant streams were often led by farmers and rural artisans, traveling in family groups, intent on acquiring land and settling permanently at the New World. Nevertheless, in the late 19th century emigrants were increasingly drawn from urban areas and non agricultural occupations. Migrants were typically young adults dominated by individual males. Thus the migrants carried very high labor force participation rates to the New World. The typical migrant was unskilled because they were young which reflected his limited schooling and training in skilled trades.
It appears that those who emigrated had more to gain from the move than the population as a whole, and they were likely to be more responsive to labor market conditions. This could be explained by explaining the determinants of emigration....