The major causes of migration are given as under.
1. Economic causes: People generally like to live in those areas where they make a livelihood. Thus they would like to move away from areas of poor soils, less developed, low levels of industries to the areas where the soils are fertile and job opportunities are more. Areas offering good employment, better living standards attract a large number of people. These are called pull factors of migration.
2. Social factors: Man is a social being and likes to live with his kith and kin. Generally the people having a common religion or language like to live together. Many people migrate to places of religious importance, migration of people to places like Badrinath, Tirupati and Varanasi is due to religious factors.
3. Political factors: These factors are related to the government policy. They are also responsible for migration. These factors are becoming important in modern times. Insane cages now minority communities are discriminated against and they are thus forced out of the countries. These causes may push factors of migration.
Consequences of migration: The following are the consequences of migration:
1. Demographic consequences: Due to migration, the population in both the regions undergo changes. Generally the proportion of old, children and females is increased due to the migration and the proportion of receiving areas is generally lowered. This is one of the reasons for hi sex ratio in the source areas and low sex ratio in the receiving areas. This happens because it is the growth of the youth male population mostly involved in migration.
2. Social consequences: Migration involves different cultures. People of different cultures might lead to cultural enrichment. Sometimes people coming together culturally from different cultures might result in conflicts also.
3. Economic consequences: It affects the resources resource-population ratio. The research population ratio may be searched in an area which might be called either under populated or over populated. A country that has enough people to enable development and utilisation of its population without lowering the quality of life is called adequately populated.
If the people are moving from one area of over-population to an area of under-population, the result is in the direction of balancing the resource-population ratio. On the other hand if the migration is from an area of Under population to over populated or adequately populated, the consequences may be harmful to both the areas.
One of the serious consequences of migration is 'brain drain'. This refers to the migration of the skilled persons from the poorer countries to the developed countries in search of better economic opportunities.
