European refugee crisis ( focus on the war in Syria

scale of migration

Push and Pull factors

intervening obstacles

impacts at source

impacts on host families

Push: War has uprooted 5.5m people during the first 6 months of 2014.

negative impacts

Mediterranean sea: most popular route, poses great risk. Most boats used are overcrowded and inappropriate for the distance travelled. More than 2,500 have died trying to cross the Mediterranean sea

Push: economic chaos, war and human rights abuses, conflict and civil breakdown in Syria.

3 million Syrians have fled abroad to the neighboring Jordan and Turkey.

mid- October 2015 Hungarian borders effectively closed preventing migrants being able to cross into Austria and Germany

Pull of Europe: perceived employment opportunities and quality of life.

positive impacts

Pull factors are sufficient to justify the intervening obstacles.

political unrest: the opposition parties will start scapegoating.

EU convention stated that the migrants had to seek asylum in the EU country they first arrived in but many arrived first in Greece and Italy and did not wish to stay there

Pull: higher human development index.

UK GDP per capita is 6x more than Eritrea.

as the migrants are often the young population, this means that the population growth will increase.

Population below poverty line is 4x more in Eritrea than UK

Longer life expectancy, security and healthcare in UK and MEDC European countries.

In countries like Sweden. Macedonia, Serbia, Croatia, Slovenia, Austria, Germany
border security along the Balkan route is increased. The welcome is cooling, security checks are getting tougher and people are being turned back

Minimum wage 55x higher in UK than Eritrea (pull factor)

migrants can send back money to their families

migrants provide young, cheap source of unskilled labour for industries and service activities and this fills up unwanted jobs and spaces in the economy

this increases their production rate. IN Italy migrants contribute to 12% of the GDP.

the high influx of people and scale of migration could produce a labour surplus and high levels of unemployment in the country

Amnesty International says that immigrants in Turkey are being illegally sent back to Syria and Iraq.

in 2015 1,014,836 migrants arrived in Europe by sea

EU migrants pay more taxes in UK than tehy receive benefits so they aid the financial burden: contributed more than 20bn to public finances

747,981 arrived in Greece via Lesvos

Population structure skewed - young families flee leaving elderly

Areas of country left in ruins, environmental effects

social disparity: country loses its cultural identity, discrimination and xenophobia develop

Degredation of towns and cities

Economic development is slowed, economically active people leave

crime rates might increase due to the social gaps and discrimination

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