Migration at World Scale
Follow one migration route end to end: what pushed people out, what pulled them to a destination, what the journey cost, and what changed at both ends. The place people leave changes as much as the place they reach.
What a learner can do afterwards
- Separate a push factor from a pull factor for one real route
- Explain the difference between a refugee and someone moving for work, and why the difference matters in law
- Name one effect on the place people left, such as money sent home or missing workers
- Name one effect on the place people arrived, such as filled jobs or pressure on housing
1 · Read
Split every migration story into push and pull. Trouble at home pushes people out, while promises abroad pull them in. Name the route first, then sort each cause to its side.
Between the Civil War and the Great Depression, nearly two million African Americans left the rural South for northern cities. Racism and hardship pushed, while factory wages pulled. Sorting that one route this way is the whole skill. The South lost workers while money sent home helped families; northern cities filled jobs but housing grew tight.
Learn the legal line too. A refugee lives outside their country because of persecution or a well-founded fear of it, and the world set this down in 1951, widened it in 1967, and the United States wrote its resettlement law in 1980. Someone moving for work answers to different laws, which is why the label matters. Note that in 2015 very few of the world's refugees reached Europe, while Turkey hosted the most.
Finish every route at both ends. Ask what the home place lost or gained, like money sent back or missing workers. Then ask what the arrival place gained or strained, like filled jobs or tight housing.
Sort push from pull, respect the refugee line, and close the route at both ends.
The rewritten readings were written for this dataset. The retained readings 'A Century of Refugees' and 'Refugees in the United States' are based on Khan Academy materials, with source identifiers recorded per reading.
More to read
Separate reasons to leave from reasons to arrive
Migration has pressures at the origin and attractions at the destination. Conflict, drought and unemployment can push people out. Better pay, safety and schooling can pull them elsewhere.
During the early 1900s, Black southerners moved to northern US cities. Hardship in the South helped push them; factory pay helped pull them.
Choose one migration route. Name its origin and destination, then classify each cause as push or pull.
Migration changes both ends of a route
Higher pay can attract workers to another country. Their arrival can meet workforce shortages and may restrain wages in particular occupations. The origin country loses workers, but migrants may send money back. These payments are remittances.
To explain effects at both ends, examine jobs filled at the destination and workers lost and money received at the origin.
A Century of Refugees
The last century forced millions to flee war and persecution, creating the modern refugee story. A refugee flees danger and gains legal protection against being sent back. That protection is the whole point of the legal difference in your evidence task. An economic migrant chooses to move for a better life and applies through normal immigration rules. Same road, different law, different rights.
Refugees in the United States
Countries run special systems for refugees alongside normal immigration. Asylum screens check whether a person truly faces persecution, and approval brings shelter, work rights and a path to settle. This machinery shows why the refugee label matters in law: it opens doors that stay shut for other movers. When you explain the difference, point at these doors. Protection from return is the right that counts most.
Explore more
2 · Watch
En anglaisTake it off screen
Where it sits
This opens up
Where this leads
Jobs that lean on this skill. Follow one to see everything it is built on.
8 questions wait behind this lesson, each with its answer explained. Every answer feeds the sky: stars light as they are learned, and dim when it is time to come back.