INTERNAL MIGRATION: CHARACTERISTICS, CAUSES AND CONSEQUENCES - CULTURE VOCABULARY - 2025

The internal migration is a social phenomenon whereby displacement of people give of their place of origin to another city, town or village within the same country. Migration can be permanent, when the person moves indefinitely, or temporary, when they have a predetermined stay.

This displacement of people or groups is mainly due to the search for an economic improvement; However, there are many causes that can lead a person to make the decision to leave their home (political, cultural, social and professional reasons, among others).

The reasons for internal migration are usually linked to the search for economic and labor improvements. Source: pixabay.com

Migration can be voluntary -when the person decides to change their address to obtain some type of improvement- or forced -when the person is forced to move; It is usually for political or military reasons.

The way to know the migratory movements is through the population censuses carried out by the corresponding organizations of each country. In these censuses, a series of questions is asked to the people, whose answers that yield demographic results on the population of the country.

In Latin America, the internal migration of people from rural areas to large cities is very common, mainly because the greater amount of work is concentrated in these and where many of the public powers are centralized.

In this region 80% of the population lives in urban areas; this is the reflection of internal migration. Many of the large cities that serve as homes for people who have decided to migrate have not been able to deal with this phenomenon in the urban sphere, and now they face major organizational and service problems that they have not been able to solve.

characteristics

Within the territory

The main characteristic of internal migration is that it must occur within the same national territory. There is another type of migration, external, which represents an international displacement; that is, outside the national territory of the country where the person who emigrates is located.

Change of address

Migration has to represent a change of residence to be considered as such. Therefore, business trips, no matter how frequent they are, or tourist trips would not be a migration. Nomadic movements do not represent internal migration.

Demographic variation

Internal migrations represent a change in the population level. They are movements that cause the demographics of a place to change, causing the population to decrease in the place of departure and increase in the place of destination.

Search for improvement

Another characteristic is that migration usually occurs in order to achieve economic, labor, social, political or educational improvement, among others.

In some situations it can be for marriage reasons, in which case it would be for personal purposes that do not necessarily represent an improvement.

Labor force active population

Most of the people who migrate are young and they are also usually people active in the workplace looking for a professional improvement.

They are usually people with some kind of education, even a basic one, and the movement is mostly towards the cities.

Causes

There can be many causes that motivate a person or group to mobilize their residence: political, economic, force majeure, environmental in nature, due to war problems or for social reasons. We will describe the most common below:

Political causes

Internal migration occurs for political reasons when there is a political regime within the territory that forces the person to move from the city. This cause is more common in external migration, since political disagreement usually comes from the central government, not from local governments.

However, individuals can be pushed towards the decision to migrate if public policies in the region where they live do not promote employment, if access to housing as a consequence of these policies is scarce, or if basic services are precarious as a consequence of political mismanagement.

Economic causes

This is the main cause of internal migration. It responds to the individual's need to obtain an economic improvement in his life that he cannot obtain in his locality, either due to lack of employment opportunities in that place or because the profession that that person develops is not well paid in that place.

Generally, in large cities there are many more job opportunities, since in these places a large number of companies are concentrated, unlike what happens in small cities or towns where employment and opportunities are limited.

Causes of force majeure

Migration can occur for causes totally beyond the control of man. In the event of a natural catastrophe, people may be forced to move from their home to another city.

For example, in 1999 in Venezuela a natural disaster occurred in Vargas state that left hundreds of families homeless, forcing them to migrate to other cities.

Cultural causes

Migration occurs for cultural reasons when the person seeks greater cultural or religious affinity.

This reason is more likely in external migrations, but it can occur in countries with different religious tendencies within the same country, which can generate in a person the desire to move to a region where they feel more identified.

War causes

The population may be forced to migrate from a territory for reasons of war. An example of this occurred in Colombia at the most violent moment of the fight against the FARC, forcing many people to move to other cities for fear of being victims of kidnappings and other atrocities.

Environmental causes

Migration can be caused by environmental causes when the person does not feel comfortable with the climate of the place where he lives, so he wants to achieve an improvement by moving to a more pleasant place. An example of this is a person who lives in a mountain area and wants to live near the beach.

Another medical-environmental cause occurs when a person is physically affected by the climate or other natural factors in the area: for example, someone with respiratory problems or severe allergies, among other conditions.

Consequences

Population density

The main general consequence of migration is a change in population density, resulting in a high population density in large cities and a low population density in rural areas.

Population density can be destabilizing for cities if they do not approach this situation wisely.

Abandoned rural areas

Another important consequence, common in many countries, is the abandonment of rural areas. Agricultural and livestock activities, which are fundamental to many economies, are often neglected.

Disproportionate ages

A common consequence in many places that have received internal migrants is the disproportion in the age of the population.

Urban areas have many more young people than rural areas, which can affect the productivity of cities; As a rule, cities with more young people with more potential to be active in employment are more productive.

Family breakdown

A non-quantifiable consequence is the family disruption that occurs with migration. Many families migrate together, but most people migrate alone, leaving family and loved ones behind.

Consequences in Mexico

Internal migration in Mexico is a phenomenon that has existed in that country for more than 40 years. In the beginning, it was mostly from the rural area to the big cities and the main cause has been work.

The places that receive the largest number of migrants are Mexico City, Baja California, Quintana Roo and Tamaulipas.

Migratory movements in Mexico have unleashed urbanization and environmental problems. As there is a greater amount of population in large cities, more and more houses are being built on sites not suitable for construction, which can generate major urban planning problems.

Another consequence of internal migration in Mexico is that there are a large number of small cities with fewer than 100 inhabitants. This generates a great abandonment of these small cities and a neglect of the jobs that can be carried out in these, such as agricultural activities.

Consequences in Venezuela

Migration brings with it flows of people moving from one place to another. The main consequence of migration in Venezuela is demographic, generating a great inequality in the distribution of the population in the national territory.

Before the Conquest, the indigenous population was settled in the state of Zulia and in the south of the country. Later, the population began to move towards the states where the sugarcane and coffee plantations were located, which shows us that the main cause of migration in Venezuela is economic or labor.

In Venezuela most of the population is found in the capital and in the northern states of the country (Carabobo, Aragua, Miranda and the Capital District), which generates a high population density in small territorial spaces.

This population density results in urban chaos in cities that are not prepared to receive that number of people, a situation that brings with it problems of housing and public services such as transportation and health, among others.

Consequences in Colombia

In Colombia, as in Mexico and Venezuela, migration occurs mainly from rural to urban areas in search of a better life. However, in Colombia there is another very important cause to migrate: armed violence.

In a period of 30 years, more than 2 million Colombians have migrated from their homes to other cities because of the violence. These migrations are mostly from rural areas to other rural areas, so the demographic changes towards the big cities are not so great.

One of the areas with the highest number of migrants is the coffee region. This results in the abandonment of coffee cultivation, one of Colombia's main export products.

Another consequence of internal migration in Colombia is the loss of quality of life in large cities due to population density, thus causing a displacement towards dormitory cities not very far from large cities.

Consequences in Ecuador

In Ecuador, as in many other Latin American countries, migration responds to economic and labor reasons. Ecuadorians have wanted to mobilize in search of a better life and the most optimal destinations within the country have been the provinces of Pichincha and Guayas.

These two provinces enjoy a privileged location: they are close to ports and the main government offices and companies are established there. They also have a large number of universities.

In Ecuador, statistics tell us that many of the people who migrate to urban areas do not have access to basic services or have a good income. This is because large cities are not prepared to guarantee a good quality of life for the number of people who live in them.

A particular consequence of migration in Ecuador between 1985 and 1990 was the feminization of large cities, which means a high number of women migrating from rural to urban areas.

Consequences in Argentina

In Argentina the first population census was made in 1869. In this southern country the population issue was always a concern; It is a country that is not densely populated, unlike the rest of the Latin American countries.

Approximately 17% of the Argentine population has migrated internally and, although a large number of them migrate to the main cities, there are also a large number of people who migrate to medium-sized cities.

For obvious reasons, Buenos Aires has been the main receiving city for people from other cities in the country, and as a consequence of this, the nation was forced to create so-called emergency villages. Informal jobs were also created to cope with this increase in population in the capital.

A positive consequence of internal migration in Argentina is that the cities that had lost inhabitants were able to reverse the situation by improving those economic factors that made them lose population; with this they avoided many migratory movements.

References

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