The Effects of Intraregional and Interregional Migration as Agents of Population Growth - Essay Example

? s) GEOG 1027: Assignment # 3 Winter March 25, The essay aims to address a two-fold objective to wit: (1) to identify the pull factors that are likely to help the city of Sault Ste. Marie attract people from other parts of Ontario and Canada to help boost its population base in the next 10 years; and (2) to analyze the effects of intraregional and interregional migration as agents of population growth. GEOG 1027: Assignment # 3 Winter 2013 Sault Ste. Marie is one of the oldest cities in United States where the river below the rapids serves as the main source of food for the natives as well as the tribes who migrated in the area during the peak fishing season (Sault Ste. Marie Convention & Visitors Bureau, 2013, n.p.). Currently, the Sault Ste. Marie continues to be one of the world-class spots for sport fishing. It is not clear whether its geographic advantages have contributed to the population growth of Sault Ste. but to understand this clearly, one has to have an in-depth analysis of its demographics and the factors involved in this population growth. Sault Ste. Marie has a national average population growth of 5.9% from 2006 and an increasing number of individuals reside on private dwellings. The population also for working and old age have increased dramatically (66.1% and 19.7% respectively). Sault Ste. Marie is also a city of families where most of them are married and have their children aged 24 and below at home and communicate mainly (95.1%) through English medium (Statistics Canada, 2012, n.p.). After knowing a few important details about Sault Ste. Marie, the next question to ask is, “What would made people from other parts of Ontario and Canada move to the city of Sault Ste. Marie to boost its population base in the next 10 years?” The answer lies on its migration rate which refers to the movement of people to live in a different place (Bowen & Pallister, 2006, 126). Migration is classified into two: internal migration and international migration. When people from other parts of Ontario and Canada move to Sault Ste. Marie (same country), it is called internal migration. Whereas, when people from Sault Ste. Marie decided to move to Japan (another country), it is called international migration. There are two types of factors why people would move in or out of Sault Ste. Marie. The first one is the push factors – forces that send a person away from an area. People may find something to dislike in the area or some disadvantages. Examples of which include inavailability or limited work opportunities and low income in the area. These are all economic factors that may affect migration rate. Meanwhile, social factors such as inavailability of public services and utilities such as schools, hospitals, electricity, and clean water supply may also be a contributing factor for migration because these affect the quality of life an individual wants to achieve. Lastly, environmental factors such as natural disasters (e.g., earthquakes, floods) may push away people from living in the area to find a more convenient and safe place to stay. Based on City-Data.com (2007), push factors that could drive people to live in Ontario include high population density per square kilometer (338 vs. 13.4), high median earnings compared to Ontario (23,649 vs 29,335), and gender discrimination between the salaries of male and female (29,985 vs. 20,151) (n.p.). Likewise, there are also forces that attract people into a certain area which are called pull factors. Pull factors attract people to live in the area because of the advantages that could be gained in it. Just like push factors, it could also be due to environmental, economic, and social advantages. Environmental advantages may include a wetter climate, a more reliable rainfall, or better soils; economic advantages include job opportunities with good prospects of improved standards of living; while social advantages include moving closer to family and friends. Sault Ste. Marie offers a number of advantages that people would decide to move in, among of which include: high education rate to aged 15 and over, a 54.7% employment opportunities ranging from sales and service, primary industry, business, arts, culture, and sport, trade, processing and manufacturing, government and religion, science, management, and health, a high percentage of car ownership, and a greater value put on marriage and families as evidenced by a high percentage of married couples living with extended families (City-Data.com, 2007, n.p.). Truly, Sault Ste. Marie is a nice place to live with especially if the moving individual or family puts so much value to strong family ties, education, and sanctity of marriage. If the Sault Ste. Marie would focus on these pull factors and will develop a program that is aimed towards improving the quality of life, more people from Ontario and other parts of Canada will surely migrate in the city. In addition, it could be possible that in a span of ten years, its population base would definitely increase. Aside from the push and pull factors, migration is also classified into voluntary and forced migrations. Voluntary migration refers to the choice of an individual to move to a particular country without coercive factors. It could be due to economic and social reasons and examples of which include moving from rural to urban or from LEDCs to MEDCs. Forced migration, on the other hand, include physical and human reasons and may include movement to camps and temporary shelters due to war or revolution and being a refugees to other countries because of an experience of a natural disaster. When the population of the Sault Ste. Marie increases, what would happen to the losing country and the receiving country in general? Migration will definitely result in two spectrums: positive and negative. With the decreasing or increasing number of population in a certain area, families, friends, and government officials of the receiving population often think of different ways to provide the necessity of the new arrivals. Meanwhile, government from losing population may view this positively in terms of need provision; however, moving to another country for economic reasons indicates that the economic status of a particular country is not enough to sustain population needs. According to Bowen & Pallister (2006), migration enable the migrants to bring new or special skills, send money back to families which goes to local spending, transfer knowledge to receiving population making it economically developed, awareness and exchange of cultural ideas and lifestyles, increase individual and national earnings and gain a higher standard of living, and grab job opportunities which are not wanted by receiving country’s own nationals; meanwhile, among of the disadvantages of migration include loss of trained and skilled people in the country of birth, loss of labor in home country when young population moved, familial separation, and strained resources for receiving population (127). Although migration has positive and negative effects on both the receiving and losing population, these are often relatively less important most especially in countries where there are plenty of space and few people. Most of the times, the pattern of migration is commonly from poor countries to rich countries. People believe that migration is essential in starting a new life as the receiving countries offer a lot of opportunities. They take the risks and sacrifice everything they have. They left their usual doings in expense of adaptation to others’ cultures. But was it worth doing for? Migration without a contingency plan is of no difference with the stories of squatters – moving from an agricultural area to cities because of the belief that there is a better life waiting for them. But in the end, they lose their property in the rural area and found no job at all; plus, they only contribute to the crowdedness of the cities, to the space, to the food needs, and to other basic human resources. Migration could be the same. People move out of their country because of economic reasons but in the end, some found luck while others did not. Thus, migrating without a contingency plan is like expanding the consequences of the imbalances in the population. To sum it up, it is not only essential to consider the different factors of population growth in order to boost up the Sault Ste. Marie population. It is also very significant to formulate a contingency plan along with these factors so as to establish an equlibrium within populations. References Bowen, A. &. (2006). Understanding GCSE Geography. Population (pp. 113-134). Oxford: Heinemann Educational Publishers. City-Data.com. (2007). Sault Ste. Marie, Ontario. Ottawa: Advameg, Inc. Retrieved on March 20, 2013 from http://www.city-data.com/canada/Sault-Ste--Marie-City.html Sault Ste. Marie Convention & Visitors Bureau. (2013). Sault Ste. Marie: Our Local History. Michigan: Gaslight Media. Retrieved on March 20, 2013 from http://www.saultstemarie.com/our-local-history-9/ Statistics Canada. (2012). Focus on Geography Series, 2011 Census. Ontario: Analytical products. Retrieved on March 20, 2013 from http://www12.statcan.gc.ca/census-recensement/2011/as-sa/fogs-spg/Facts-csd-eng.cfm?LANG=Eng&GK=CSD&GC=3557061 Read More