Why does migration occur?

Migration occurs in response to some definitive cause because men tend to migrate in response to a rational impulse which is also, of neccessity, powerful enough to break the yoke that binds men to specific localities.

Excerpt from: E. Marvin Goodwin, Black Migration In America From 1915 to 1960: An Uneasy Exodus, Wales: The Edwin Mellen Press, Ltd., 1990: p. 22.

In geography, the terms used to describe or analyze migration are "push factors" and "pull factors."

• Push factors cause people to want to leave a place.
• Pull factors draw people to a place.

© Illinois State Museum 31-Dec-96