Economic Migration

Economic migration refers to the movement of people from one region or country to another primarily to find work, improve income, or secure better living standards, as distinct from flight from persecution or conflict, though motives often overlap. Ernst Ravenstein’s nineteenth-century laws of migration described patterns of movement toward industrial centers, and Everett Lee’s push-pull model emphasized conditions at origin and destination. Neoclassical economists such as Harry Harris and Michael Todaro explained migration through wage differentials, whereas Michael Piore’s dual labor market theory argued that advanced economies demand migrant workers for insecure jobs that natives avoid. Douglas Massey and colleagues emphasized networks and cumulative causation, and Oded Stark’s new economics of labor migration saw migration as a household strategy to diversify risk. Immanuel Wallerstein and Saskia Sassen linked migration to the structure of the world economy and global cities, and Stephen Castles and Mark Miller described the age of migration. Remittances support families and development, but migrants face exploitation, discrimination, and restrictive border regimes. Debates concern brain drain, wages, and integration. Economic migration remains central to research on globalization, labor, inequality, citizenship, and development.