01:920:101 Chap.6 Global Inequality and International Migration
Global Inequality and International Migration
This chapter joins two review-sheet blocks: global inequality and migration. Global inequality is the systematic difference in wealth, power and life chances between countries, and migration is one of the main ways people respond to it.
In the Spring 2026 schedule the topic ran partly asynchronously before a lecture in Week 8, just ahead of Exam 1. For global inequality the review sheet asks about gross national income, the regions with the highest and lowest incomes, and differences in life expectancy and infant mortality between income groups.
It also asks for the basic theories of global inequality with their pros and cons, which the chapter presents as four families of explanation in a single comparison table. For migration it asks for precise definitions: immigration and emigration, net migration and the net migration rate, and the reasons people move.
The lecture uses a push and pull model at macro and micro levels, distinguishes economic migration, family reunification and refugee migration, and explains the non-refoulement principle from the 1951 Refugee Convention. The final part covers U.S.
immigration history in four phases, the four global trends of acceleration, diversification, globalisation and feminisation, the three models of integration, and group-threat theory, which explains anti-immigrant sentiment as a response to perceived economic, cultural or racial threat. The European refugee crisis of 2015 and 2016 is the lecture's applied case.
Migration items on Exam 1 are often short calculations or definitions: a net migration figure with its sign, a migrant's motive matched to economic migration, family reunification or asylum, or a trend matched to its name. Global inequality items are more likely to test the theories and the link between national income and health.
Group-threat theory rewards knowing its structure as independent and dependent variables, which the lecture drew explicitly.
What this chapter covers
- 01
GNI, life expectancy and infant mortality
- 02
Four families of explanation for global inequality
- 03
Immigration, emigration and net migration
- 04
Push and pull, economic, family and refugee migration
- 05
U.S. immigration history and global trends
- 06
Integration models and group-threat theory
Worked example · free
Comparing two countries by net migration rate
- 2Net migration: A = +10,000; B = +30,000.
- 3Rates per 1,000: A = 10,000 ÷ 2,000,000 × 1,000 = 5; B = 30,000 ÷ 20,000,000 × 1,000 = 1.5.
- 1Conclude using the rate, not the raw number.
Key terms
- Net migration
- The number of immigrants minus the number of emigrants for a place over a period; positive for receiving countries and negative for sending countries.
- Non-refoulement
- The principle, found in the 1951 UN Refugee Convention, that no one should be sent back to a place where their life or freedom would be at serious risk.
- Group-threat theory
- The theory that hostility toward a minority grows when the majority perceives it as an economic, cultural or racial threat.
- Gross national income
- The total value of goods and services produced by a country's residents, including income earned abroad, often divided by population to rank countries.
- Emigration
- Leaving a place or country in order to live somewhere else.
- Feminisation of migration
- The growing share of women among international migrants, one of the four global migration trends.
- Melting pot
- A model of integration in which immigrant and host cultures blend into a new shared culture.
Global Inequality and International Migration FAQ
Why does global migration always net to zero?
Every person who leaves one country arrives in another, so each emigrant is also counted as an immigrant somewhere. Adding net migration across all countries therefore cancels out, even though individual countries can gain or lose many people.
What are the four global migration trends?
Acceleration means more people moving; diversification means more kinds of migrants; globalisation means more countries sending and receiving; feminisation means a growing share of migrants are women. Learn one example of each.
How is assimilation different from the melting pot?
Assimilation expects newcomers to adopt the host culture. The melting pot imagines cultures blending into something new. Multiculturalism, the third model, lets groups keep distinct cultures with equal standing.
What is the push and pull model of migration?
It explains migration by the factors that push people away from one place, such as war or unemployment, and those that pull them toward another, such as jobs or family. The lecture applies it at both the structural and personal level.
Exam move
Practise two net migration calculations with invented figures, then explain one migration story from the news with push and pull factors at both the macro and micro level. Then add one sentence using group-threat theory to explain a political reaction to migration.
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