Causes and consequences of mass migrations in the late 19th century

Résumé du document

According to the Times in 1850, at a moment of political and economic crisis in Britain, "sending poor people to the colonies would end pauperism". At the beginning of the period we study, economical and social factors are the main explanatory variables for mass migrations across oceans. Mass migrations can be understood as vast movements of people from a country towards another. The late 19th century, between the 1850s and the 1900s, could be seen as an era of mass migrations, since, as far as the world population is concerned, the percentage of migrants was higher than during any other period. Sudden bursts of migrations, such as the Irish one, caused by the Great Famine between 1846 and 1854, during which 1,5 million people left the island, were rather rare.

But a longer movement throughout the last fifty years of the century, notably coming from European countries such as Germany or Italy and going to new parts of British Empire (Australia, Canada, New Zealand) or the United States, was one of the most massive manifestations of globalization. Such a process can be explained by global economical or social factors, which had multiple local effects and encouraged people to often leave the only country they knew. On the other hand, the consequences of mass migrations are to be studied on a global scale, for they changed, if they have not created, the living conditions of entire societies in the New World.

If the core factor of both causes and consequences of mass migrations seems to be economic, it has led to major changes in the social, political and cultural spheres. In a context of global market integration, did mass migrations increase the gap between source and destination countries, or accelerate global convergence? We will see that the economical factors which provoked mass migrations tended to disappear as more and more migrants went overseas, and then how this evolution led to political and social reactions towards a more globalized world.

Extraits

[...] Grain had become scarcer in Ireland because of the Corn Laws, abandoned in 1846, partly because it had led to famine in the country. Therefore, the dream of a better economic situation, thanks to better wages, encouraged emigration. This mechanism was also due to the difference between land-abundant countries and labour-abundant countries. This is one of the direct consequences of the Hecksher-Ohlin theorem. Whereas Australia, the United States or New Zealand could offer a large amount of land, the large number of workers in England, Italy or Germany tended to lower their wages. [...]

[...] On the other hand, the consequences of mass migrations are to be studied on a global scale, for they changed, if they have not created, the living conditions of entire societies in the New World. If the core factor of both causes and consequences of mass migrations seems to be economic, it has led to major changes in the social, political and cultural spheres. In a context of global market integration, did mass migrations increase the gap between source and destination countries, or accelerate global convergence? [...]

[...] Economic conditions, but above all the trauma caused by World War can account for the quota- policy of the United States in the 1920s, whereas the creation of the Nansen passport for Greeks and Russians in 1922, symbolizes a new meaning for mass migrations: migrants were more the victims of emerging nationalisms than workers enjoying a new globalized world. Bibliography: C. Knick Harley, “Western Settlement and the Price of Wheat, 1872–1913”, in The Journal of Economic History pp 865-878 S. Akerman, “Theories and methods of migration research”, in H. Runblom and H. Norman (eds.), From Sweden to America University of Minnesota Press, Minneapolis K. O'Rourke, J. [...]

[...] Moreover, population rising led to a labour surplus especially in rural areas: it heightened labour abundance within the source countries. Therefore, it can be asserted that population increase had a major economic and social influence on mass migrations. As a consequence, mass migration produced a globalized phenomenon, partly because of the massiveness of these human movements. People were accompanied by a huge international factor flow. If, as M. O'Rourke puts it, late nineteenth century seems to have been more globalized than today”, it is because of the “unprecedented international factor flow” that characterized the 19th century. [...]

[...] Both workers and capital, thanks to mass migration, contributed to a more integrated global world. Industrialization, both in Europe and overseas thus seems to be correlated with mass migrations. According to Akerman, during the first Industrial Revolution, emigration rates, though at first very low, rose very rapidly, and then tended to slow down. This phenomenon is related to immigration costs: in the preindustrial era, costs may have been prohibitive for most workers. Hence, if industrialization of the home country had a positive effect on real wages, it allowed workers to accumulate savings and then leave their country. [...]