Background reading · Social Sciences

Push, pull and forced: why people move

The reasons people leave one place and choose another, the words geographers use for them, and how flow maps show movement.

People have always moved. Some move a few streets away, some move from the country to a city, and some cross oceans. Geographers call this migration. Every move has reasons, and those reasons usually come in two kinds.

Push and pull

Push factors: things that make people want to leave, such as no jobs, too little land, a disaster, war or unfair treatment. - Pull factors: things that attract people to a new place, such as work, family already there, a good school, safety or a better climate.

Most moves have both. A young person in a small town might be pushed by a lack of jobs and pulled by a cousin in the city who says there's work.

Words that move

Immigration: coming into a country to live. - Emigration: leaving a country to live somewhere else. - Internal migration: moving within the same country, like from Gisborne to Auckland. - Rural–urban migration: moving from the countryside to towns and cities. - Refugee: someone forced to flee their country because of war or persecution, who has been given protection. - Asylum seeker: someone who has fled and asked for protection, but whose claim has not yet been decided.

Choice and no choice

Some people choose to move after a lot of planning. Others have no choice at all. A refugee family may leave with only what they can carry. New Zealand accepts a quota of about 1,500 refugees each year, and they often have the hardest journey to belonging.

Showing movement on a map

A flow map uses arrows to show movement from one place to another. The thicker the arrow, the more people moved. Flow maps show patterns clearly, but they can't show why people moved, how they felt, or the people who went back.

Sources and further reading

Written for Kōkiri Learn students in our own words. Check facts against the sources.

Used in: Why We Move: Migration and Belonging