In our days migration is becoming uncontrolled problem which has unpleasant consequences, especially to the economy and social structure of the country. In spite of the fact that countries are doing their best to solve the problem of migration, but it still remains one of the key problem to which there is no easy solution.
Migration slows down the economy and causes terrible effects such as increased pollution and unemployment. What is migration? “Migration is the movement of people, especially of whole groups, from one place, region, or country to another, particularly ith the intention of making permanent settlement in a new location” (Encarta encyclopedia / 2004). And there are a number of reasons why people migrate.
The main reasons causing migration is the followings: people living in the countries regard large cities as a more desirable place to live (especially in undeveloped and developing countries), the supply of social services such as education and health service are not the same everywhere, low income in rural locations, poverty and others. These reasons would “push”(“push factor”) people from rural or poor countries to ore developed regions or countries.
There is also “pull factor”(opportunities for education, marriage or job opportunities) which attracts labour towards large cities or countries. An instance for “pull”ing workforce can be Japan, where local people do not want to work for low salaries (In Japan low wage may be considerably higher for people migrated from less developed counties) or in very dangerous jobs. That is why such countries prefer to hire employees from other countries rather than local labour.
As it was stated above, a lot of people move to a particular area with various reasons. And this is as you know migration which has terrible consequences. First of all, it affects on the increase of pollution in small towns. The accumulation of people in one place makes them (towns) to expand; on the other hand these small towns become large cities. And thus, the pollution increases since researches have shown that if in one area the population becomes more than fifty thousand people this place is considered to be highly polluted.
An example for this can be any developing country where population and productivity have rapid increase. Second of all, people who migrate from rural places to large cities in order to get a job with higher earnings can cause unemployment. The population rises in urban regions. “The rapidly expanding urban areas are characterized by many writers as “parasitic” development in so far as they absorb a large volume of resources, financial, physical and human but make only a limited contribution to the development effort (their “generative” apacity)” (Colman D. Nixon F. / 1986).
And certainly the jobs for everyone are not enough. According to Lewis (1954) if there is differential in salary between the rural and urban areas the migration will continue until this gap disappears (Colman D. , Nixon F. / 1986). Typical evidence for the case of unemployment can be the cities of India (Bombay, Calcutta, Madras and etc. ) to where people moved from the rural areas and Pakistan in hope of getting a job with higher salary but only increased poverty and unemployment rate in these cities.
Thirdly, not only developed, but developing countries can suffer from migration. All the developing countries might experience negative impacts, because of “brain drain” – the loss of trained and educated people. Almost in all less developed countries the government pays very little amount of money for educated individuals. Consequently, these people will lose interest to their job and try to migrate to those countries where there are good conditions in jobs and excellent income.
And majority of them are doing so. For example, according to the International Organization for Migration (IOM) presently in the United States there are more African engineers and scientists than in Africa itself. There is an interesting fact that “brain drain” has cost Zambia approximately nine billion dollars in potential growth. Besides, in India it is estimated that about one hundred thousand qualified technology employees are going to migrate to the other countries in the nearest future years. Center for Strategic & International Studies / 2002). Finally, there is a negative effect of migration on labour supply. Often ncontrolled migration leads to an excess of labour supply in the cities which causes poverty and forces people to do an informal kind of work activities (low-productivity activities) which is really a sort of undesirable type of labour.
For instance, selling things in the streets, children watching cars and asking for money from their owners when they come back and others. Such things occur almost in every country even sometimes in the developed ones. Besides there is a big possibility of labour scarcity in the areas where migrants came from which may also armfully affect on agriculture. To conclude from all above, one thing can be derived: there is more loss than profit when people migrate.
Certainly some people may not be agree with this statement saying that migrants have also positive effects on the countries’ economy and social structure. But usually, in my opinion, migration has negative impact on the countries in view of the fact that it causes unemployment, pollution, redundancy in a particular area and lack of labour supply in another area, brain drain and etc.
And thus, to avoid hese consequences the government should follow some policies such as motivating people to stay in their place by increasing wages (especially for educated and well qualified workforce), improving the supply of social services (particularly in the field of education and health) in the rural areas since people feel that these services are better in the city areas, giving extra financial assistance to agriculture to stimulate interest for work in farmers and others. I propose, that the problem of migration could be reduced by implementing such useful and effective policies.