DR.

RAM MANOHAR LOHIYA NATIONAL LAW

UNVERSITY

Sociology Project

Reasons for Migration

Submitted to-
Dr. Sanjay Singh (Professor,
Sociology) Dr. Ram Manohar
Lohiya National Law
University
Submitted by-
Shriyash Narayan Patnaik
Enrolment number-
220101149
BA. L.L.B. Hons. 3rd
Semester
Dr. Ram Manohar Lohiya
National Law University

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 ACKNOWLEDGEMET
First off, I would like to thank my subject teacher, Dr. Sanjay Singh, sir, for
allowing me to complete this project and letting me choose the topic I wanted to
research.
I would also like to thank the honourable Dean, Dr C.M Jariwala, sir and the
Head of the department Dr. A.P Singh, sir, for providing me with all the
facilities required to complete the project.
I learned a lot about the ‘Reasons for Migration’ while working on this
assignment, and those insights have helped me become more knowledgeable
about the subject.
I Would also like to thank my family and friends who helped me gather different
information, collect data, and guide me from time to time in making this project
unique.

Thanking you

Shriyash Narayan Patnaik

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 DECLARATION

I, at this moment, declare that the project work entitled “Reasons for Migration”
is the outcome of my efforts under the guidance of Dr Sanjay Singh, sir. The
project was submitted to Dr Ram Manohar Lohiya National Law University, for
the partial fulfilment of the B.A.LLB 3rd semester 2023.
I also declare that this project report has not been previously submitted to any
other university. Date-28/10/2023
Place- Lucknow

Table of Contents
Introduction 4
STATEMENT OF PROBLEM 5
REVIEW OF LITERATURE 5
HYPOTHESIS 6
METHOD OF STUDY 6
OBJECTIVES OF STUDY/RESEARCH QUESTIONS 6
WHAT IS MIGRATION? 3
FACTORS AFFECTING MIGRATION 6
REASONS FOR MIGRATION 8
TRENDS IN REASONS FOR HUMAN MIGRATION 17
Conclusion 19
Bibliography 20

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 INTRODUCTION
Human Migration has been a phenomenon that has helped shape the society and institutions
that surround us today and it continues to be one of the leading drivers of the societal change
that simultaneously bring conflict and prosperity to the place of migration, i.e., the migration
field. Human migration has a really long history with the earliest Homo Sapiens leaving their
home, Africa, around 50,000 years ago1. Since then, due to one reason or the other, we have
found it difficult to stay in isolated Petri dishes2.

The reasons for migration are not causally isolated decisions; they are governed by a plethora
of complex inter-dependant factors. Over time these factors have changed in terms of their

1 David Reich, Who we are and how we got here (First published 2018, Oxford University Press 2018) XV
2 Though exceptions to this exist which will be discussed in this paper and how these exceptions have helped in
determining a history of human migration.

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priority, evolved and new factors are added as a society changes and goes through internal or
external overhaul. These reasons for migration, the factors affecting them, the change they
have seen over time and how these reasons, which I would like the readers to think of as a
baggage the migrant carries with himself/herself, influence the assimilation of migrants in the
migration field, will be some the headings under which I would like to take this research
paper forward.

Historically the primary reason for migration has been the search of food and shelter and it
was extremely limited by the technology available to modern humans3 at this time. The
migration was limited to places that can be reached by water: costal areas. But this changed
with the invention wheel or rather the use of wheel by the Yamnayas4. They were able to
populate the European Steppes, survive more effectively and in turn able to wipe out certain
chunks of population nearly in their entirety5. During the medieval period the primary reason
for migration was war and religious and political persecution. This continued to be the main
reason till the end of World War 2. In 2017, almost two-thirds of all the migrations are related
to economic reasons6

This paper seeks to evaluate why there has been a change over time in these reasons and how
these reasons effect the assimilation of the migrant.

STATEMENT OF PROBLEM
Human migration takes place under certain heads of reasons. These reasons are influenced
and informed by immediate or consequential circumstances of the native place of the
migrant.

REVIEW OF LITERATURE
The following books, articles and journals have been referred for conducting the research for
this project: -

3 This paper shall exclusively talk about the migrations related to modern humans, i.e., Homo Sapiens.
4 David Reich, Who we are and how we got here (First published 2018, Oxford University Press 2018) 107
5 Idib
6 News European Parliament, ‘Exploring migration causes – why people migrate’ (News European Parliament
30 October 2020) https://www.europarl.europa.eu/news/en/headlines/world/20200624STO81906/exploring-
migration-causes-why-people-migrate accessed 9 September 2022

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 1. Who we are and how we got here by David Reich, Oxford University Press
This book deals with the early dynamics of the human migration and how the current
populations came to be. It is considered a landmark work by many in the field of recreating
the path of early humans through genetics.

2. Inequality: a genetic history by Charles Lalueza Fox, The MIT Press

This book focuses on the inequalities involved in the early human migrations. It sheds light
on how the migration has affected genders and different economic groups differently. With
very scarce material available on the dynamics of early migration this book immensely
helped in comparing certain circumstances of early migrations and their outcomes with the
contemporary ones.

3. God Can Wait – New Migrants in Germany Between Early Adaptation and
Religious Reorganization by Claudia Diehl and Matthis Koenig
This research paper focuses on how two different groups of migrants blend (or not) in a
society that is different from their native state. It helped to reiterate (or demolish) the
hypothesis I put forward.

4. A Theory of Migration by Everett S. Lee

This paper was the starting point when trying to understand the starting of a why migration
happens and how it effects the migration field. It forms the basis of different facets of
migration and is used to understand what are the general principles of migration that already
exist.

5. World Migration Report 2022, International Organisation for Migration

This report provided an extensive data on the migrants around the globe from 1990 to 2020s
that helped in comparing the trends of the human migration in the recent times to that before
the World War 2. Though the data before the Industrialization is scarce and rarely reliable
(The Parsi Migration to India for example) this data can still help in identifying a trend in the
human Migration.

6. Faith On the Move, Pew Research Centre, 2012

This report by Pew Research Centre provides data for the religion of the migrants. It helped
in understanding how different religions have been affected differently over time and where
do people from a particular religion prefer to go. This data comes really handy once we start
to get into certain reasons that go against the general principles of the migration.

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 HYPOTHESIS
Reasons for Human migration follow a trend which is accompanied by an invention, material
or theological, that makes it possible and justifies the migration.

METHOD OF STUDY
This research project uses the doctrinal method of data collection and no other method
has been used in this project.

OBJECTIVES OF STUDY/RESEARCH
QUESTIONS
1. To understand the phenomenon of human migration
2. To understand the reasons for human migration
3. To understand different kinds of migration
4. To understand the factors affecting the human migration
5. Establish a link between different kinds of migrations and factors driving them
6. To understand how reasons for migration have changed over time

We shall start our discussion by defining what exactly a migration is. According to
International Migration Law's 'Glossary on Migration', migration is defined as "The
movement of persons away from their place of usual residence, either across an international
border or within a State”7. This definition also counts the movement of people within their
own country as migration too. There has been much debate whether to include internal
migration in the definition of the word but for our purposes we would be exclusively focusing
on international migration, and when we talk about eras when borders lose their
contemporary significance, a migration would mean moving to place where a different
culture or religion is followed.

According to the aforementioned definition of the word migration, the word migrant would
simply mean “a person who leaves their usual place of residence”. Another important
question that now arises is the question of time. For how long does a person has to be away to

7 International Organization for Migration, Glossary on Migration, 137

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be considered a migrant? The answer lies not in the duration of time but rather in the
intention of why the person has left their usual place of residence. If a person leaves,
voluntarily or otherwise, knowing that their coming back is almost certain it may be termed
as travelling. On the other hand, migration means to move away, voluntarily or otherwise, in
aspiration of finding a better living place. The coming back, in the case of migration, is not
always certain except for certain cases.

The next factor is that of distance. According to Everett S. Lee “No restriction is placed upon
the distance of move……. thus, a move across the hall from one apartment to another is
counted as just as much an act of Migration as a move from Bombay, India, To Cedar Rapids,
Iowa, though, of course, The initiation and consequences of such Moves are vastly different” 8
. The last thing that we will discuss here is the intention behind migration. Almost every time
people migrate, they do so in search of a better life. Whether the migration is voluntary or not
the intention is always9 to find a better living place; this is true for economic migration,
migration because of religious/political persecution or environmental migration.

FACTORS AFFECTING THE MIGRATION

When it comes to the factors affecting the migration, there is a very succinct division to them.
These can be divided into two main heads;

1. Push Factors
2. Pull Factors

8 Everett S. Lee, A Theory of Migration, (1966), 49

9 There is one exception to this that I have been able to locate during this research. When the Jews went to
populate Jerusalem, in what is called Aliyah, they did not do so to find a better life but out of religious
aspirations. There are more examples of this throughout history and all of them follow a similar line one
reasoning as the aforementioned incident.

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Both of these factors can be further divided into economic and non-economic factors. This
division comes really handy because as we have seen earlier that economic reason
overwhelms any other reason for migration in the contemporary world.

Push Factors

Push factors are conditions that propel people to leave the origin country 10, simply put the
factors because of which people are tempted to leave their usual place of residence are called
the push factors. These are the factors such as poverty/low wages, high taxes, high
unemployment and overpopulation under the economic head and discrimination, poor health
care, war or oppression, corruption, crime, compulsory military service, natural disaster,
famine under non-economic head11.

The top ten countries in 2020 in the descending order of origin of international migrants are:

India, Mexico, Russian Federation, China, Syrian Arab Republic, Bangladesh, Pakistan,
Ukraine, Philippines and Afghanistan12.

All of these aforementioned countries are affected by at least one of the push factors that
drives the people living there to consider migrating to some other country.

Pull Factors

Pull Factors are conditions that entice people to enter a destination country 13. Pull factors are
reasons why a migrant chooses a certain country over other for migration 14. These are factors
such as demand for labour, high wages, generous welfare benefits, good healthcare and
education systems, strong economic growth, technology, low cost of living under economic

10 Nicole B. Simpson, ‘Demographic and economic determinants of migration’, IZA World of Labour (2017)
11 Idib
12 International Organization for Migration, World Migration Report 2022, 25
13 Nicole B. Simpson, ‘Demographic and economic determinants of migration’, IZA World of Labour (2017)
14 The place where a person migrates to is called a Migration Field

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head and family and friends/networks, rights and freedoms, property rights, law and order
and amenities under non-economic head15.

The top ten countries in 2020 in the descending order of destination of international migrants
are:

United States of America, Germany, Saudi Arabia, Russian Federation, United Kingdom,
United Arab Emirates, France, Canada, Australia, Spain16.

All of these aforementioned countries have at least one of the pull factors that entices the
migrants to consider living there.

REASONS FOR MIGRATION

The reasons for migration can broadly be divided into following heads17:

1. Demographic and economic reasons

2. Environmental reasons
3. Socio-Political reasons

We shall now devote our time in understanding each of these heads.

Demographic and economic reasons

The demographic and economic reasons are considered the most important factors while
migrating. The economic factors act as the basis of a decision to migrate. It is a starting point
when a chain of thought is initiated with regard to the decision to migrate. People in most
cases tend to move from a low-income country to a high-income country. Workers in low-
income countries are looking for high wages and better employment opportunities for which
they turn to high-income counties. But people are not only looking for high-paying jobs they

15 Nicole B. Simpson, ‘Demographic and economic determinants of migration’, IZA World of Labour (2017)
16 International Organization for Migration, World Migration Report 2022, 25
17 News European Parliament, ‘Exploring migration causes – why people migrate’ (News European
Parliament, 1 July 2020) https://www.europarl.europa.eu/news/en/headlines/world/20200624STO81906/
exploring-migration-causes-why-people-migrate accessed 09 September 2022

10
are also looking for stable jobs. Hence, employment stability also plays a crucial role when
migrating for economic reasons. Another aspect is the income differential between two
countries. As the income differential increases between two the countries it increases the
chance the migration between them and vice versa when the income differential decreases 18.
Income levels of a country, are hence, considered to be the most important factor in the whole
scheme of things. “There is a higher incentive to migrate if one is poor among rich than if
one is poor among poor”19. This statement points to income inequality which acts as a push
factor. To sum up, low wages, employment instability, and income inequality act as push
factors under the economic head of reasons for migration.

During the Bronze age, Indus Valley Civilization and Mesopotamia were involved in trade.
According to some scholars, a large chunk of Indus Valley Civilization’s economy depended
on the trade with Mesopotamia, so much so that for a long time Mesopotamia’s downfall was
considered as the primary reason why Indus Valley Civilization came to an end and people
living there were forced to migrate to the South India. This example succinctly shows that
economic reasons for migration are not something that came into existence post the
Industrialisation rather they came to the forefront of the whole affair of things. People, even
before the Industrialisation, did migrate to find better jobs and employment stability only that
these people were not so overwhelming in number when compared to people who migrate for
all the other reasons.

A number of studies recently have shown how the already existing network of migrants acts
as a pull factor for the migrants. The existing network in a specific country helps in creating
an international migrant corridor between the origin and destination countries. This can be
seen in the data with people preferring the already existing migration corridors over other
routes. “The Mexico to the United States corridor is the largest in the world at nearly 11
million people. The second is from the Syrian Arab Republic to Turkey, comprising mainly
refugees displaced by the Syrian Arab Republic’s decade-long civil war. On the other hand,
the third largest corridor in the world, India to the United Arab Emirates (over 3 million),
comprises mainly labour migrants. The bilateral corridor between the Russian Federation and
Ukraine take up spots four and five among the largest corridors in the world. About 3 million
people born in the Russian Federation now live in Ukraine, while nearly the same number of
18 Nicole B. Simpson, ‘Demographic and economic determinants of migration’, IZA World of Labour (2017)
19 Rotte, R., and M. Vogler. Determinants of International Migration: Empirical Evidence for Migration from
Developing Countries to Germany. IZA Discussion Paper No. 12, 1998.

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people have moved from Ukraine to the Russian Federation” 20. Estimates suggest that if the
stock of migrants from a specific country increases by 1,000 people, then the flow of
migrants will increase by 4.7 people per year, although the effect dampens as the migrant
stock gets bigger, suggesting that migrant networks have the largest effect when migrant
stocks are small.21 This marks the importance of the existing stock as a determinant for
migration under the demographic factor of the non-economic head.

Here it is very important to distinguish between migration happening exclusively for

demographic purposes, for example, family reunification, and migrations for economic
reasons. The latter depends on an amalgamation of both the economic as well as demographic
factors whereas in the case of the latter it only depends on the demographic factors. In
addition, studies typically find that migration rates are higher among people who speak the
same language as the host country.22 So more people who speak English as their second
language will choose the United States of America as their destination rather than China if we
consider only the language aspect.

Environmental Reasons

Environmental changes refer to the changes in the environment of a certain place when
compared to two distinct periods. These include the sudden warming of the climate, flood,
drought, cooling of the climate, hurricanes, and torrential rains among others. It was the
primary reason for the collapse of a number of civilizations during the bronze age that led to
a mass migration of people dwelling in these places. Most of the Bronze Age civilizations
were based near a river or a river system and hence the risk of migration due to
environmental reasons increases as these areas are more susceptible to floods or earthquakes
as compared to steppe or plains. These rivers and monsoon used to be the only source of
water for people of these civilizations and hence, if not for floods and hurricanes, a long
drought or the river changing its course, was usually enough to force these people to relocate,
which was precisely what happened to the Indus Valley Civilization23.

20 International Organization for Migration, World Migration Report 2022, 27

21 Nicole B. Simpson, ‘Demographic and economic determinants of migration’, IZA World of Labour (2017)
22 Idib
23 Tony Joseph, Early Indians The Story of our Ancestors and Where we came from (First published 2018,
Juggernaut Books 2018). Although the Ghaggar-Hakra river changing its course is the most accepted answer to
why Indus Valley Civilization came to an end, the topic is open to debate. In all probability it was not just one
reason but an amalgamation of seceral reasons that led to downfall of IVC.

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After the industrial age, the environmental reasons may be subdivided into man-made and
natural environmental reasons that lead to migration. The most prominent example of man-
made environmental change that led to migration is that of the Bhopal Gas Tragedy of 1984.
Estimates vary on the death toll, with the official number of immediate deaths being 2,259
with 574,366 injured victims24 and many more being forced to relocate for several weeks.
Similarly in 2014 man-made disasters included the failure of a dam in Zimbabwe which
resulted in 2000 people losing their homes; and maritime disasters claimed 2 118 victims. 25
These man-made disasters that lead to forced migration might not translate into numbers at
present but they do have the potential to become one of the foremost set of reasons for
migration in the coming century.

The natural environmental changes, coupled with economic reasons, can be considered the
most persuasive reason for migration before it was overtaken by socio-political reasons
during the middle-ages. The early humans migrated from one place to another, in a hunter-
gatherer lifestyle, for the very purpose of finding a better place to hunt and shelter from
extreme weather conditions. It was the reason that drove humans from their home continent
of Africa and in all probability, it was the reason why the Yamnayas migrated to Europe
almost five-thousand years ago, changing almost the entire population dynamics of Europe
and ninety-percent of England’s26. Even the Aryans who came to Indian Subcontinent in 2nd
century BCE were forced due to the ecological changes taking place in Eurasia and the
Steppes. During the 4th Century BCE, due to ecological changes the winters became colder in
the Europe that might have led to aridization and water shortage 27 28. This might have been
the reason why it became difficult the exploit the advantages of the Steppes and Indo-Aryans
would have been looking for more arid and humid plains which was exactly what they would
have found in Indian Subcontinent.

24 Wikipedia, ‘Bhopal Disaster’ (Wikipedia, 2020) < https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bhopal_disaster#cite_note-

rehabilitation1-3> accessed 09 September 2022
25 European Commission, Science for Environment Policy, Thematic Issue: Migration in Response to
Environmental Change, Issue 51, 3
26 David Reich, Who We Are and How We Got Here, (First Published 2018, Oxford University Press 2018) 109-
117
27 Anthony, David W. (2007), The Horse The Wheel And Language. How Bronze-Age Riders From the
Eurasian Steppes Shaped The Modern World, Princeton University Press
28 Demkina, T.S. (2017), "Paleoecological crisis in the steppes of the Lower Volga region in the Middle of the
Bronze Age (III–II centuries BC)", Eurasian Soil Science, 50 (7): 791–804,

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Although this section should ideally take much more space than is provided in this paper, this
is really not a contemporary issue that force people to migrate to other countries, at least not
anymore and not now. As discussed earlier, this paper seeks to discuss reasons for migration
that take place across international borders. This section would not have been this brief if we
were discussing about migration related to early humans but as we are trying to find a trend
in the reasons for human migration and as the data regarding the reasons of migration during
the very early period, especially when it pertains to environmental reasons, is not very well
established, we would try to stick to the data that we can firmly rely upon.

Socio-Political Reasons

The socio-political reasons have been the most impactful drivers behind human migration
from the Middle-ages to the end of World War 2 after which no other reason is even
tangentially close to the Economic reasons for human migration. The socio-political reasons
include, among others, war, political instability, religious and political persecution, and
intolerance. We will explore each of them briefly here.

Of the 214 million migrants present in the world today, 49% are Christians, 27% Muslims,
5% Hindus, 3% Buddhists, 2% Jews and 9% atheists 29. But as the Christian population is
almost 32% of the world’s population, it is evident that they will top till list too. A better way
to look at this data would be to compare the population of the migrants as a percentage of the
total people following that religion. The results are not very shocking in this regard with
Judaism at the head of the list with almost 25% of Jews alive (as of 2010) who have migrated
followed by Christianity at 5%, Islam at 4%, Atheists and Buddhists at 2% and Hindus at
1%30. Jews have migrated the most because of two reasons: the first being the Jewish
migration during World War 2 and the second being the Aliyah or the Jewish Migration to
Israel.

The Jewish Migration during World War 2 and the Zoroastrian or the Parsi migration to India
in the 8th Century after the fall of Sassanid Empire are a couple of examples of war and
religious and political persecution. Both of these migrations were triggered by a war that led
to the persecution of a certain religion. There is also a subset of this category where migration

29 Pew Templeton Global Religious Futures Projects, Pew Research Centre, Faith on the move (March 2012),
11
30 Idib

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happens because of certain religious aspirations and not persecution. The Aliyah is the prime
example in this context. Aliyah is the immigration of Jews from all over the world to Israel to
“go up to” the holy land of Israel. Jews are not migrating there in search of better jobs or for
political stability (not, at least, in the contemporary time) but rather in pursuit of their
religious aspiration to make a country for Jews in the holy land of Israel. This is very
different from leaving a country because of religious or political persecution as was the case
with Jews during the Second World War. It is also a very counter-intuitive phenomenon as it
goes against many of the theories of migration where migration is actually a way to make
your life better than it currently is but migrating solely because of religious aspirations may
not always provide the kind of stability one aims for generally when considering migration.
Of course, the whole idea of Aliyah can be traced back to a movement to make the lives of
Jews better, which is the very reason why migration happens, but in the recent years it has
almost translated to Evangelical zeal (to borrow a Biblical term).

One example pertaining to migration due to political instability would be the Partition. The
Partition of Indian Subcontinent killed almost 1 million to 1.5 million people with nearly 10
times that number was forced to migrate 31. This is the one of the biggest cases of massacre
and migration at this large scale, second only to holocaust. The Partition was one of the
bloodiest migrations of the history and serves well to show how the political instability,
intolerance and war can lead to such inhumanly large number of lives displaced.

CHANGING TRENDS IN HUMAN MIGRATION

The earliest of human migration, the one that homo sapiens carried out, was the out of Africa
migration some 50,000 years ago32. In all the probability they were driven by some
environmental changes. They reached almost all the continents of the world some tens of
thousands of years later and people are still migrating. The foremost reason, however is much
different from the first time the homo sapiens came out of their cradle in Africa but that
tendency to find a better place to live is still embedded in our genes. Sure, we no longer
forage for a living nor do we leave a certain place because animals are scarce, we ironically
now look for a certain place where animals are scarce or else we take it into our hand to make
the place ‘suitable’ for living, but we still are finding the Gardens of Eden.

31 Alex von Tunzlemann, Indian Summer The Secret History of the End of an Empire (First Published 2007,
Emble 2008) Ch. 16
32 David Reich, Who we are and how we got here (First published 2018, Oxford University Press 2018) XV

15
This society was mostly had hunting as their primary source of food. Hence they can only
setlle in places where finding animals was not difficult. Also before the invention of wheel, it
was not possible for humans to cover large distances in a short amount of time. So these
hunter-gatheres remained closed to water bodies, specifically rivers. This trend in settlemt
would be followed by even the urban civilizations to follow33.

This early forager society continued for quite some time to roam and find game until the
advent of agriculture when they started settling in small villages, gathering stuff and using it
as a community, not unlike the communists and socialists. Still the primary reason for
migration was Environment related. It would still be some years before humans would make
cities. Before the urban centres came, there existed small and experimental village like
settlements that were not exactly urban in an way but they were far from the horticulture
societies. An example would be Mehergarh in Pakistan. It was arguably a predecessor of
Indus Valley Civilization and people of Mehergarh, after intermixing with migrants from
Zagros mountains in Iran would create the Indus Valley Civilization 34. Why did people from
Zagros migrate? The reason is unclear as these people were far and few but by taking other
migrations around this time as refrence, they could have migrated to look for fertile land.

A very important factor, even at this time was the proximity to the river or any other water
source that was the deciding factor as far as the location of these villages was considered.
This changed with the invention of wheel. The Yamnayas used wheel driven chariots, or to
stay away from such a controversial word, the wagons in a particular way around five
thousand years ago35. They made it possible for humans to reach and populate those flat lands
that were hitherto uninhabited solely due to lack of better transportation facility. This,
according to my hypothesis, was the time when humans were not just driven by
environmental factors to migrate but rather by economic factors too, for the big cities were
coming up at several places. It was the time when Indus Valley Civilization, Mesopotamia,
Bactria-Margiana Archaeological Complex and the Yellow River civilization were reaching
their mature period. The economic reasons were now starting to take a centre stage when
Bronze Age came to an end with a plethora of reasons ranging from climate change, war and

33 Ibid
34 Tony Joseph, Early Indians The Story of our Ancestors and Where we came from (First published 2018,
Juggernaut Books 2018)
35 David Reich, Who we are and how we got here (First published 2018, Oxford University Press 2018) 107

16
economic instability to name a few. This led to an unprecedantented amount of migration and
intermixing between different sets of cultures giving rise to many more.

But the migration was not gender neutral. Many researchers have shown how these
migrations tend to favour male more than females. There were many more males as
compared to females who would generally migrate 36 37. This led to more genes from migrant
males, the Y chromosome, and more genes from native females, the mtDNA figuring into the
current population. It was a male biased migration. One was theory that could explain this is
how the male and female population of native and migrant group interacted. If the migrant
group is able to establish their supremacy in their new land, they not only get access to
resources of the land but also to humans. The male population of the migrants could have
heavily interacted with the female population of the native group, by rape, coercion etc.,
which would explain this bias towards Y chromosome of migrants in current populations.

During the classical age things were more stable, for India atleast. Once humans came out of
the end of Bronze age, the most important migration that took place was because of
Alexander III of Macedon. Alexander decided to conquer the wohle world which brough him
and his people' into close contact with the regions of Middle-East and India. The most
significant impact of his endeavour can be seen in Indian subcontinent where the Indo-Greek
kingdoms came up and there was an exchange of cultures of its border that shaped both India
and Greek myths which still share similarities.

Roman Empire from 300 BCE to 200 CE saw a stable increase in population from 17.2
million to 25.6 million38. This indicates a 'golden age'. The kingdoms in Rome and India were
simultaneously going through a period of rich cultural innovation and experimentation. These
empires provided pull factors for people who were looking to migrate. Economic reasons,
again were probably the driving force behind the migrations at this point, attracting people
from rural areas who were looking for better living conditions. India, around this time, had
started the use of ships for trade with neighbouring regions but the trade created a constant
exchange of human population in what is known as Seasonal migration. Ships would sail

36 Carles Lalueza-Fox, Inequality A Genetic History (First published 2022, Massachusetts Institute of
Technology 2022)
37 Tony Joseph, Early Indians The Story of our Ancestors and Where we came from (First published 2018,
Juggernaut Books 2018)
38 Asgher U and Bánhegyi G, “Historical Patterns in Ancient and Contemporary Migration Phenomena in the
Mediterranean Area” (2015) 3 Procedia Manufacturing 4076

17
from (or to) India according to the wind patterns that would repeat after specific months. On
the voyage and during the stay people would share their stories and culture with each other.
This slowly led to Indianisation of South East Asia which was one the the trading hotspots for
India. Merchants from south-eastern and eastern parts of India.

With the rise of Islam in the 6th Century CE, Europe and Middel-East saw a great deal of
turmoil and Military Migration39. This Military Migration, along with migrations that were
caused because of diseases, would dominate the world of migration till around the end of
second world war. Parsi migration, Aliyah, Crusades, Islamic invasion of India, Afghanistan,
Turkey and Africa are good examples from around this period.

Subsequently Europe went through the Dark Ages. Possessed with sea-faring prowess and
push factors at home, Europeans embarked to find new lands to exploit. In search of India,
they found the Americas instead and began migrating there. It was a clear case of economics
migration where the motive behind migration was to improve the living conditions. As a
result of this migration almost all of the population of the Americas would be wiped out
owing to the European interventions and diseases they carried with them. The Black Death
would go on to ravage in Europe too.

With the invention of gun powder and later the nuclear weapons, war would dominate the
landscape of migration for more more than two hundred years leading to migrations during
World War I, World War II, Partition, Afghanistan War, Vietnam War, and many more wars
that were driven by economic greed in the guise of national interest. Partition was arguably
the biggest migration of modern history. The Partition of Indian Subcontinent killed almost 1
million to 1.5 million people with nearly 10 times that number was forced to migrate 40.

The migrations now are heavily influenced by economic reasons with around two-thirds of
the migrations today are based on economic reasons 41. People are now looking for better job
security, better wages, better living conditions, political stability, and discrimination free
society for living. Air transport and Internet has certainly worked as a catalyst behind this

39 McNeill, William H. “Human Migration in Historical Perspective.” Population and Development Review,
vol. 10, no. 1, 1984, pp. 1–18. JSTOR, https://doi.org/10.2307/1973159. Accessed 28 Sep. 2022.
40 Alex von Tunzlemann, Indian Summer The Secret History of the End of an Empire (First Published 2007,
Emble 2008) Ch. 16
41 News European Parliament, ‘Exploring migration causes – why people migrate’ (News European
Parliament 30 October 2020)

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increase in migration due to economic reasons. But with recent war in Ukraine, fa of
Afghanistan and capricious position of Sri Lanka, the trend might return to what was seen in
early twentieth century. Or people might migrate to the places where they feel safer. It
nonetheless will promote migration.

Conclusion
In this paper I have tried to find a trend in the migration patterns throughout human history.
This being a vast subject and resources at my disposal limited, there are bound to be gaps in
the theory. But for most part it seems to follow a general pattern of an invention that drives a
wave of migration around the world untill something else comes along and changes the
landscape of migration. With wheel, ships, gunpowder and perhaps the most important
invention, religion humans have migrated to and from their home to the a multitude of places.
Reasons for ancient migrations still remain obscure but as far as we can theories climate
might have played the most decisive role in these migrations. The trend that I have identified
in this paper, for earliest to latest is this: Migration due to Environmental reasons, Migration
due to Economic reasons, Migration due to Military and War, Migration due to Economic and
Demographic reasons. Most of the aforementioned migration succeeded an invention: wheel,
urban civilizations, religion, gun powder and nuclear weapons and airplane and internet.

Bibliography
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