The Push and Pull of Human Migration

“Push factors” are reasons that people give for leaving their home countries and moving to a new country.”Pull factors” are the characteristics of the new countries that make people want to immigrate to them.Common push factors include political unrest or lack of opportunity. Common pull factors include job opportunities and, when it comes to the United States, democracy.

Look at each of the countries in the following list:

• Mexico
• China
• Philippines
• India
• Vietnam

Use the CIA World Factbook to identify the net migration rate of the country.

Then use a search engine with key words such as “net migration France” to identify the push and pull factors that inform the net migration numbers.

The CIA World Factbook data may also inform your reasons. For example, countries with a negative net migration rate may have high unemployment data.

Write a paragraph about each country that includes the following:

• The net migration rate of the country
• Information about the cultural characteristics of the people of each country
• Information about the economy of each country
• Information about reasons for migration (push and pull factors)