Types of Migration

Medical treatment

Around 60,000 people from the UK travelled abroad to receive medical treatment in 2009. Nearly 26,000 of these were for dentistry. Even when travel costs are included, it can be cheaper to travel abroad to have dental work done.

Cosmetic surgery, infertility treatment and orthopaedic treatment are also reasons for travel. People may be unhappy with the NHS or face a long waiting list.

Making this choice does have problems - it can be harder to check that private doctors in other countries have the correct qualifications, and people may not be fully insured. Infections or superbugs may be brought back to the UK.

Competitive sport

Athletes may be required to travel around the globe to compete in various tournaments. Sport may also require someone to take temporary residence in a country to fulfil a contract. Football in the UK is a sport that attracts foreign players. Pull factors are higher wages and the reputation of the country.

 
Retirement migration

Many people plan to spend their retirement in a different area. The south-west counties of Dorset, Devon and Cornwall are popular.

The perceived attractions include:

·         a slower pace of life

·         the scenery, the community

·         away from the busy larger cities

·         lower crime rates

Popular areas for retirement migrants have problems as a result of this:

·         pressure on health care

·         demand for social services

·         an increase in house prices

·         a lack of suitable housing

There are also advantages:

·         there is an increased demand for local services - so the local shop and pubs have more custom

·         jobs in social care and health care are available

·         a growth of age related services, such as chiropodists, social groups and bingo

·         younger retired people spend "the grey pound", spending money through travel and recreation

Economic migration

Economic migration is defined as a choice to move to improve the standard of living by gaining a better paid job.

When Poland and seven other Eastern European countries joined the EU in 2004, the UK received many economic migrants. There were 500,000 workers from Eastern Europe in 2009. The pull factors included wages five times greater than they could get at home. Some come for seasonal jobs, such as vegetable and fruit picking. More qualified migrants may look for medical or education jobs. The Eastern European migrants are not evenly spread across the UK.

 

 

The impacts of mass tourism

The impacts of mass tourism

the package holiday is key in mass tourism. This is a branch of tourism in which large multinational companies shape developments according to global demand. It is large-scale, highly commercial, focused on popular destinations and pays little regard to local communities. Mass tourism has brought both benefits and costs. These positive and negative impacts mainly fall under 3 headings, economic, socio-cultural and environmental.

Economic impacts-

Southern Europe, the Middle East, Africa, South East Asia and Central America all benefit from tourism. Tourism creates many jobs in hotel, restaurants but also in transport. Tourists need food which is good for agriculture. Tourist buy souvenirs and that can be good for manufacturing.  The hotel staff, ice-cream sellers and souvenir shop owners spend their money in local shops. Tourism puts money into many people’s pockets and through the multiplier effect, the whole economy can be lifted. Tourism can help economic development in LICs. However there are some negative aspects. Much of today’s international tourism is in the hands of big companies for example Thomas Cook. This means that the profits made in a particular country ‘leak’ out to the country where the tour operator have its head offices. This is money that could be used to help the development of the country.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Socio-cultural-

The degree in which tourism impacts on people and their traditional ways of life- there culture- depends on the type and volume of tourism. Mass tourism has helped revive local handicrafts as well as performing arts and rituals. There are many negatives as well with converging on a location. Some examples of how tourists can easily offend the traditional values of local people-

·         Drinking too much alcohol and becoming loud and offensive

·         Ignoring local dress codes and revelling too much flesh

·         Encouraging prostitution and unintentionally, crime

·         Eroding the local language by relying too much on English

·         Failing to behave in the proper way in churches, temples and mosques

 

Environmental impacts-

A list of negative impacts-

·         The clearance of important habitats, such as mangroves and rainforests, to provide building sites for hotels.

·         The overuse of water resources

·         The pollution of the sea, lakes, rivers by rubbish and sewage

·         The disturbance of wildlife by safari tourism, hunting and fishing

·         Traffic congestion, air and noise pollution

Transnational corporations (TNC’s)

Transnational corporations (TNC’s) are very large global companies. They have an administrative headquarters (HQ), a Research and Development establishment (R & D) and production centres in one country and at least one but often many more, braches and/or production overseas.

Approximately 90% of TNC’s are based in MEDCs (more economically developed countries) especially the USA, France, Germany, the UK and Japan.

Overseas branches are in LEDCs because:

·         Production costs are usually less in MEDC’s with lower wages, cheaper land and lower transport costs.

·         Governments of LEDCs want to host TNCs as they often encourage further economic development (multiplier effect) and so they offer financial incentives such as low rates and taxes etc.

·         LEDCs often have fewer environmental restrictions

 

Recently, firms in newly industrialised countries (NICs), especially in the ‘tiger economies’ of Eastern Asia, which produce machinery, electronics and cars, have become TNCs. As wage costs have risen in their home countries they have extended into neighbouring LEDCs with cheaper labour, e.g. Korean companies to China, and to market areas such as EU countries.

TNCs are very dominant in the current global economy and are found in all sectors.

They also directly employ around 4.5 million people and provide jobs indirectly for millions more workers and also currently control over 75% of world trade, 40% of which involves the movement of goods between units of the same corporation in different countries.

 

Toyota- first established in Japan in 1937. By 2004, it was the 3^rd largest manufacturer of automobiles in the world and by far the largest in Japan, producing one vehicles every 6 seconds. It had 51 manufacturing companies in 26 countries from USA to India. They employed one quarter of a million people worldwide. Sold nearly 6.72 million vehicles from mini-vehicles to large trucks in over 150 countries.

Toyota chose the UK because of its excellent skilled and flexible workforce, strong tradition of engineering and vehicle manufacturing and favourable working practices, large market for Toyota cars, reliable industrial transport links to customers and the 230 British and European supply partners.

Within the UK, two sites where chosen, both offering good transportation links, Burnaston, 600 acre  site, flat, easy to develop, 7 miles from Derby. Deeside, 7 miles from Chester on a well-prepared industrial park. Both locations provided electricity, gas, water, telephones, business and personal support services. The first of the cars was produced in 1992 and Toyota is now the UK’s 4^th largest exporter of fully built cars. In 2002, Toyota made £500 million net contribution to the UK’ balance of payments.

Global shift in manufacture

Global shift in manufacture

The global economy is changing. New services are appearing within the tertiary and quaternary sectors. Advances in technology are creating new branches of manufacturing, most notably in high-tech industries. Modern communications  are leading to new ways of working and new work locations. Teleworking and outsourcing are two examples. Established branches of manufacturing are shifting their locations from HIC’s to LIC’s.

Globalisation

Globalisation is the widening of companies around the world

Four significant developments have helped this scaling up:

The appearance of large transnational corporations (TNCs) with diverse business interests literally spread across the globe.

The growth of regional economic or trading blocs, such as the European Union (EU) and the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA). By encouraging free trade between member countries, the barrier effects of national boundaries are broken down.

The development of modern transport networks (air, land and sea) capable of moving people and commodities quickly and relatively cheaply. Due mainly to the aircraft, physical distances worldwide are much less important. We live in a ‘shrinking world’.

Advances in information technology and communication technology and communication technology mean that important data and decisions can be whizzed around the globe in a matter of seconds. A TNC with its headquarters in London or another major city can closely monitor markets trends around the world. It can easily be checked on what is happening in its branch offices and factories scattered around the world.

The outcome of these developments is today’s global economy. The workings of the global economy involve five different forms of flow

Trade- through the export or import of raw materials, food, finished goods or services

Aid- either as a donor or a received nation. Much aid is an economic nature

Foreign investment- through investment, TNC’s are able to exploit economic opportunities around the world, it might be oil in west Africa or sugar in Brazil

Labour- virtual to the workings of the global economy. Economic migration is commonplace these days as people move in search for work and a better life. TNC’s are on the look-out for cheap labour

Information- fast transfer of data and decisions are crucial to the workings of the global economy.

Coastal management techniques

Coastal management is about two things. The first is resolving conflict between different users of the coast and between those users and the well-being of coastal ecosystems. The second is taking action to meet big changes that threatened long stretches of coast. Two changes prevent risk, risk of coastal erosion and coastal flooding.

 

Coastal erosion- quite normal and natural but in some places at fast speeds. The 20-30 metre high cliffs made of soft sands, gravels, clay are retreating 1 metre per year.

 

Coastal flooding-  storm surges are the greatest flood threat. These are caused by low air pressure, which raises the height of the high-tide sea. Strong onshore winds then drive the ‘raised’ sea towards the coast and are capable of breaching coastal defences and flooding areas.

 

Hard-engineering management

Hard engineering involves building some sort of sea defence, usually from rocks or concrete. It aims to protect the coast from erosion and the risk of flooding by working against the power of waves.

Some examples: the groyne, wooden revetment, recurved steel wall, gabion and the rip-rap

Soft-engineering management 

These methods of coastal management try to work with natural processes.

Beach replenishment- pumping or dumping sand and shingle back onto the beach to replace eroded material.

Building bars- underwater bars located just offshore to reduce wave energy.

Fencing, hedging and replanting vegetation- this helps to preserve a beach or sand dune by reducing the amount of sand that is blown inland.

Cliff regarding- the angle of a cliff is reduced so that it is not so steep because this reduces the likelihood of cliff retreat by mass movement.  

 

Depositional landforms

Depositional landforms are produced on coastlines where mud, sand and shingle accumulate faster than they can be moved away by the waves.

Beaches are the most common depositional landforms. They result from the accumulate of material deposited between the storm and low tide marks. The sand, shingle and pebbles come from a number of sources. Much of its material that has been eroded elsewhere and that is being moved along the coast by longshore drift. Some comes from offshore as a result of waves picking it up from the sea bed and rolling it in towards the land. From the opposite direction, rivers feed mud and silt into the coastal zone via their estuaries (mouths).

Spits are long narrow beaches of sand or shingle that are attached to the land at one end. They extend across a bay, an estuary or where the coastline changes direction. They are generally formed by longshore drift in one dominant direction. At the end of the beach, the material being transported by longshore drift. This mainly occurs on the landward side (rather than the seaward side). The wind and waves may curve the spit towards the land.

If a spit develops in a bay, it may build across it and link the two headlands to form a bar. The formation is only possible if there is a gentle sloping beach and no sizeable river.