Issues in Migration: Effects of migration on Island Societies

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The effects of migration on small island societies tend to be amplified due to their size and often their remoteness factors. While the space given for this exercise could not possibly show all the effects of migration on an island society, it can emphasize the more general effects. Economically, islands tend to experience growth based on migration patterns. Remittances, the return of skilled workers, and boosts in tourists and short term migration on the positive side, and the "The effects of migration on small island societies tend to be amplified due to their size and often their remoteness factors. While the space given for this exercise could not possibly show all the effects of migration on an island society, it can emphasize the more general effects. Economically, islands tend to experience growth based on migration patterns. Remittances, the return of skilled workers, and boosts in tourists and short term migration on the positive side, and the "brain drain", the influx of un-skilled workers, or unemployed returnees, and decreasing population on the negative side. Ecologically, increasing population on islands, or in-migration, can be devastating as an island ecologically can only handle so much growth, in population or otherwise due to its constrictive size. Politically and Culturally, the effects of migration on islands differ. Some experience conflict when large migration of a certain ethnic group occurs, and others have difficulty accepting those that have migrated and returned. Some depend on this factor, while others welcome new ethnicities and cultures and alter themselves politically to accommodate them.

Many small islands do not have the educational facilities to train skilled and educated workers to maintain or develop the infrastructure they desire. In these cases many islanders migrate to larger centres to obtain an education. Some return, bringing the island the human resource they need, however, many are lured away by higher wages, and more opportunities in larger centres. While some see this as a negative situation, a "brain drain" as it is often seen, remittances from these workers, or money sent back to families, are often a key source of income for the entire island, not just those receiving them. They often generate a rise in the standard of living and help pay for many services. In some cases they generate employment in areas such as the building sector and other services. However, they also tend to generate an increase in the desire for consumer goods which have to be imported, thus channelling the remittance money out of the island itself. Some migration boosts are beneficial to the island in that they provide consumers, and bring much needed economic funding to the domestic market. Often these are tourists or those interested in short term migration such as military personnel and business travellers. However, large migration patters can also contain influxes of un-skilled workers or unemployed workers who may have left the particular island, or others around and have come as "failures". ...