Revisiting the Push and Pull Factors Driving Demographic Trends: The Case of Migration between South America and Europe

Andrea Aparicio Castro , University of Oxford
Arkadiusz Wisniowski, University of Manchester
Dilek Yildiz, International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis
Michaela Potancoková, Wittgenstein Centre (IIASA, VID/ÖAW, WU)

Within the large volume of published theoretical research explaining migration, including movements from and to South America, the push-and-pull factor theory has been one of the most widely used frameworks to understand migration. This theory states that migration results from the interactions of factors of diverse nature in destinations and origins mediated by intervening obstacles and/or intervening opportunities that make them to have more weight on the decision of migrants to stay in a particular origin or to arrive at a specific destination. The push-and-pull factor theory has influenced the creation of many conceptual backgrounds focused primarily on explaining migration from developing to developed countries. Some research has established that push and pull factors can encourage migration in both directions, challenging the unilateral perspective which conceives the Global South as a niche of misery whose inhabitants desire to leave towards the prosperous Global North. Other research acknowledges the need for a confluence of origin-destination conditions for an exchange of migrants. This paper aims to provide empirical evidence of how the existence of complementing conditions in South America and Europe has resulted in specific patterns of migration between both regions. This is done by using census data provided by South American and European data, covering the period from 1986 to 2020.

No extended abstract or paper available

 Presented in Session P3. Migration, Economics, Policies, History