Emigration is the action and the phenomenon of leaving one's native country to settle abroad. There are many reasons why people might choose to emigrate. Some for political or economic reasons. Some might have found a spouse while visiting another country and emigrate to be with them. Many older people living in rich nations with cold climates will choose to move to warmer climates when they retire.

Many political or economic emigrants move together with their families toward new regions or new countries where they hope to find peace or job opportunities not available to them in their original location. Throughout history a large number of emigrants return to their homelands, often after they have earned sufficient money in the other country. Sometimes these emigrants move to countries with big cultural differences and will always feel as guests in their destinations, and preserve their original culture, traditions and language, sometimes transmitting them to their children. The conflict between the native and the newer culture may easily create social contrasts, generally resulting in an uncomfortable situation for the "foreigners", who have to understand legal and social systems sometimes new and strange to them. Often, communities of emigrants grow up in the destination areas, collecting immigrants of common provenance, also to help for integration.

Emigration had a profound influence on the world in the 19th and the 20th century, when thousands of poor families left Western Europe for the United States, South America and Australia.

Emigration might also be due to population transfer and/or ethnic cleansing.

Motives to migrate can be either incentives attracting you away, known as pull factors, or circumstances encouraging a person to leave, known as push factors, for example:

Push factors

• War,
• Famine,
• Disease,
• Political reasons,
• Natural hazards that forces individuals to leave their home (volcanoes, hurricanes, floods).

These factors generally do not affect people in developed countries, even a natural disaster is unlikely to cause out-migration.

Pull factors

• Higher incomes,
• Better medical facilities,
• Better education facilities,
• Family reasons,
• Political stability,
• Often these are based on perceptions rather than realistic information,

If the migration is dominated by pull factors, it is voluntary migration. If it is based on push factors it is forced migration.

See also

• immigration
• diaspora
• émigré
• exile
• refugee