Globalisation & Migration (Edexcel A Level Geography)

Defining and understanding globalisation

• Globalisation is a complex process that has developed over time
• Globalisation refers to the way in which people and places around the world are becoming more closely linked
• It has different economic, social, cultural and political dimensions:
  
  • Food
  • Work 
  • Culture
  • Money
  • Migration
  • Trade
  • Communication
  • Travel
  • Poverty etc.
• Globalisation is nothing new, with people and places having past connections:
  • Trade - the Silk Road trade routes covered over 6400 km across Asia to Europe from the 2nd century BCE until the mid-15th century. These routes were central to economic, cultural, political, and religious interactions between the East and West
  • Colonialism - during the 19th century, the British Empire controlled 25% of the world's peoples
• Globalisation has been responsible for changes in:
  • Global transport systems
  • Global economic systems
  • Patterns of demand for labour
  • Rural-urban migration within countries
  • International migration
  • Exploitation of global resources and rise of the transnational corporations (TNCs)
  • Global finance
  • Global communications
• The level of globalisation can be measured:
  • Economic - exports and imports as a proportion of GDP
  • Social - internet users as a proportion of the population
  • Political - membership of international organisations
  • Physical - availability of resources for exploitation (oil, wood, coal, gold, cotton etc.)
• Globalisation has lengthened (distance) connections between people and places and those connections have become deeper and more commonplace
• Technology has played a key role in driving changes and has transformed lives on every continent, particularly since 2000
• Although globalisation has benefited billions of people, concerns remain that it has changed some people’s lives for the worse

Globalisation and migration

• Significant changes in the global economic system have increased disparities of wealth between different areas of the world
• This has altered patterns of worker demand and increased migration within (internal) and between (international) countries, with people seeking a better way of life
• Shifts in manufacturing jobs from highly developed, high wage paying, economies (HDE) to less developed, lower wage paying economies (LDE), such as Mexico, parts of the EU etc, increased the demand for regionalised manufacturing workers
• Rapid industrialisation of countries such as China and India have created a high demand for workers and has been met, in part, by rural-urban migration
• Capital investments in emerging market economies (EME) and LDEs has created demand for workers in construction and services, which drives international migration
• Increases in international trade has resulted in the same companies (TNCs and MNCs) operating in more than one country and employing international corporate management 
• Migration has led to increased remittances being sent nationally and internationally 

Rural-urban migration - push/pull

• Globalisation has encouraged internal migration through:
  • Mechanisation of agricultural systems creating a loss of jobs - push factor
  • Landgrabs by government and agribusinesses forcing people out of their homes and jobs - push factor but also a pull for investors
  • Investments in trade - imports and exports increasing the opportunities of jobs - pull factor
• Internal migration gives rise to a national core-periphery system developing, which is strengthened over time 
  
  • The periphery is considered areas outside of core economic regions
• However, this leads to uneven economic growth; where one 'core' region has a greater 'pull' than another cores
• Collectively the flows of investment, resource allocation, and people is known as the 'backwash effect' 
• This is where people, investments and resources are re-directed from the periphery to core regions
• Typically, this is the rural-urban migration pattern, but can be urban to urban or rural to rural, it just depends on the dominance (pull) of one 'core' over another
  • Rapid industrialisation occurred in China after the government created Special Economic Zones (SEZ) during the 1980s
  • These policies allowed for foreign investment into 'special zones' that are separated areas, managed by a single administration and with its own regulations
  • As a result, more than 200 million rural migrants now work in China's main cities such as Shanghai and Shenzhen with around 20 million people arriving in cities each year
  • Over the next decade, an estimated 60% of Chinese people will live in urban areas

International migration

• Most international migration is to highly developed economies (HDE) 
• Half of all international migrations are to one of 10 countries
  • The US has more international migrants than any other at 51 million in 2020
  • Germany has the second largest with approximately 15.8 million and
  • Saudi Arabia is third with 13.5 million
• Sometimes the core-periphery process occurs at a larger, spatial scale such as the EU-Schengen agreement
  • In 1995, international borders within most EU countries were removed and allowed for the free movement of people and goods within the EU
  • Eastern European countries joined in 2007
  • Benefits include the ability to move from one EU country to another without checks 
  • Arguments raised against the agreement is the number of migrants that entered the EU (e.g. Syria) as refugees and then have access to the rest of the EU with no border controls 

• Approximately 3% of the world’s population live outside their country of birth (approx. 281 million people), of which 66% are economic migrants
• Female migration has steadily increased (50%), with women making up the majority of contract workers in the Philippines, Sri Lanka, Thailand and Indonesia
• Until the 1990s the majority of international migration was mainly to HDEs such as the UK and the USA
• However, there is a rise to certain cities of developing countries (Mumbai, India etc.), which have become major hubs for global immigration
• The level of international migration varies between countries due to differing migration policies and levels of global economic engagement
  • Singapore encourages international migration
  • Australia and New Zealand have barriers in place
• Some countries attract few migrants due to civil unrest or lack of development e.g., Eritrea, South Sudan etc.
• Inward investment by TNCs can depend on the ease by which a company can transfer its senior management staff into a particular nation
• Spatially there is an increase in migration, impacting both the country of origin and destination, with many new migration streams/routes being developed

• Environmental, economic and political events affect both the source areas (country of origin) of many migrants and their destinations
• Resulting in flows of voluntary economic migrants and involuntary or forced refugees and asylum seekers
• Temporary movement, such as tourism, is not counted as migration
• International migration occurs for different reasons
  • Voluntary migrants are often economic migrants seeking better jobs and standard of living
  • Other migrants feel as though they have no choice but to leave their country of origin through political change
  • Some flee across borders because they fear death or persecution from war, natural disasters, religious or political persecution
  • They apply for ‘asylum’ in a host country and whilst the application is being considered they are known as asylum seekers 
  • If their application is successful, they may be granted temporary or permanent residency. Legally they now become refugees
  • Environmental changes such as global warming force some people to leave their homes and even countries
    • Low-lying Pacific Islands such as Kiribati and Tuvalu are sinking due to sea level rise and residents are migrating to New Zealand and Australia 

Top ten destinations and origins of international migrants in 2020 (in millions)

• The push-pull model of migration (from a sociologist called Lee) describes the reasons why international migration occurs and the processes migrants go through on their journey

• The model shows that places of origin have both positive reasons to stay and negative reasons to leave (push factors)
  • If the negatives outnumber the positives people might decide to migrate
• The destination country also has positives (pull factors) and negatives
  • The more positives there are, the more attraction it has for migrants
• Migrants leave because of both push and pull factors
• When deciding whether to leave, and then on their journey, migrants face various challenges (intervening obstacles) and processes
  • Costs of travel
  • Family pressure to stay
  • Physical barriers such as distance, seas and mountains
  • Human traffickers and smugglers
  • Difficulty with new languages and filling out paperwork
  • Government policy on immigration
  • Border controls
• These obstacles and processes mean that migration happens in steps
  • Migrants may make several smaller journeys and stay in temporary accommodation before they reach their final destination
• Globalisation has increased the movement of migrants around the world and is an important flow within the global economy
  • In 1970 approximately 90 million people were living in a country they weren’t born in
  • In 1990 that figure had increased to approximately 153 million
  • In 2020 it was estimated to be 281 million