Step migration
Step migration is a migration pattern conceptualized in 1885 by Ernst Georg Ravenstein who observed migration as occurring stage by stage as rural inhabitants move closer to urban areas of growth. It is a migration pattern regarded by some scholars to be a widely popular form of international migration in the twenty-first century globalized world. There is a large breadth of study proving the existence of step migration in many international migration patterns, although there is lack of consensus over its exact specification and measurement. Step migration scholars deem it to be an important international trend that has the power to aid in the design of policy development efforts in both rural and urban areas worldwide. According to Abrahm Lustgarten, Senior Environmental Reporter for ProPublica, in his May 2021 report, Step migration -- or "stepwise migration" -- is a characteristic migration pattern of\\driven by climate change. Overview Dennis Conway has researched into how migration scholars have conceptualised step migration and attempts to clarify these competing definitions into an operational and consistent definition: "...a process of human spatial behaviour in which individuals or families embark on a migration path of acculturation which gradually takes them, by way of intermediate steps, from a traditional-rural environment to the modern-urban environment." In 'Laws of Migration', Ravenstein explained how migration could be gradual and occurred step by step geographically. According to Ravenstein, step migration occurred in short distance migration when individuals migrated from rural towns to an urban centre by stepping through intermediate-sized towns. Scholars today see step migration as occurring globally as individuals step up through hierarchies of countries toward their preferred destination. This idea evolved as scholars such as Conway saw step migration as characterised by movements up and down an urban hierarchy. Step migration has been explained as requiring multiple stages of migration due to a failure of the migrant to integrate into the country such as failure to find work or cultural disconnect, which then prompts another migration. However, there has been confusion in migration literature over the step migration as a concept. The specification of step migration has been contested and there are inconsistencies in definitions by different scholars over the progression of step migration theory. It is still a contested issue as to how relevant step migration is and in what incidences it occurs, although it has been stated that it is widespread in Third World Migration. Todaro sees multistage migration as explaining labour migration patterns in less developed countries. These patterns are characterised by two stages: the first being the unskilled and rural worker migrating to the urban city, and the second being the attainment of a more permanent job in the urban area. In the nineteenth century especially, the definition of step migration was contested and often inconsistent. Ravenstein's conceptualization focused on the spatial movements of migrants in the United Kingdom, where he did not see this pattern of migration as related to an urban hierarchy as he saw urban cities as merely the focus point to