critically evaluate the economic importance of travel and migration in the arid regions
Answers
Migration has been present in the history of the human being since its inception: the first relations on population movements can be found in the Bible and other historical sources of Antiquity. The exodus of the Jews from ancient Egypt (circa 1200 BC) and the migration of Greeks in the Mediterranean region (from 800 BC) are but some examples of these processes. Men have always migrated. However, since the nineteenth century an increase in population movements can be seen in the world scenario. In the years 1815-1930, about 52 million Europeans emigrated to the Americas - including Brazil.1 Migration thus acquired a massive character: the twentieth century was described by some researchers as the "migration era" (cf. Castles & Miller, 2009). In just five decades the number of international migrants nearly tripled from 76 million in 1960 to 214 million in 20102 (IOM, 2008; DESA, 2009). During that period, which spanned two world wars, decolonization and the Cold War, the world economy experienced deep changes that also influenced the migration pattern of both sending and receiving countries and regions. In this sense, the change in the migration pattern that occurred in Brazil in the 1980s and 1990s is part of a more universal process. Western Europe, which for over a century was the main exporter of labor, after 1945 starts to become an important destination of immigration from North Africa, the Middle East, the Indian Subcontinent and, on a smaller scale, Latin America.