EE.G. Ravensteinss1885 “Laws of Migration”.pptVIP

E.G. Ravensteinss (1885) “Laws of Migration” 1. Most migrants move only a short distance, and then typically to major cities. 2. Rapidly growing cities are populated by migrants from nearby rural areas; in turn, the “gaps” left in the rural population are filled by migrants from more distant areas. 3. The process of dispersion is the inverse of the process of absorption and exhibits similar features. 4. Each main current of migration produces a compensating counter current. Continued… 5. Long-distance migrants tend to move to major cities. 6. Rural people have a higher propensity to migrate than urban people. 7. Women have a higher propensity to migrate than men. Ravenstein leaves little doubt that he believed employment and wage opportunities were the major “determinants” of migration: “In most instances it will be found that they did so (leave their homes) in search of work of a more remunerative or attractive kind than that afforded by the places of their birth.” (1885, p. 181) (parentheses are mine). Later he wrote that “…the call for labour in our centres of industry and commerce is the prime cause of these currents of migration.” (p. 198)? Ravenstein does, however, recognize that the motives for migration are “various.”  C. Warren Thornthwaite, Internal Migration in the United States (1934)? Carter Goodrich, et al., Migration and Economic Opportunity (1936)? Dorothy Swaine Thomas, Research Memorandum on Migration Differentials (1938)? Thomas: Confirms Ravensteins earlier work regarding U.S. Goodrich, et al.: Migration is response to changing job opportunities. Also provides a detailed description of U.S. internal migration going back to the 1850 census which was the first U.S. census to provide lifetime migration data. H. Makower, J. Marschak, and H.W. Robinson (series of, in Oxford Economic Papers during the late 1930s). They focus on two “incentives” to migrate a. relat