Migration Drivers and Decision Making

 “Push” factors are associated with the migrant’s origin country (in essence, what “pushes” them to migrate), whereas “pull” factors refer to the destination country (in other words, what “pulls” and attracts people to a particular place). Some common push factors include conflict, loss of livelihoods, extreme climate events, political instability and economic crisis, whilst common pull factors are socio-economic stability, job opportunities, family connections and an environment less prone to natural disasters.

While this model is still commonly used, it is often criticised for oversimplifying migration dynamics. In reality, migration decisions are shaped by a combination of interconnected drivers that can act as both “push” and “pull” factors at the same time. MMC therefore uses the broader concept of migration drivers, which better captures the complexity of people’s motivations and circumstances.

Family and social connections often play central roles in an individual’s decision to migrate. A person may choose to migrate, for example, as a way to reunite with family members, or in order to seek employment opportunities that would then enable them to support their loved ones in their home country. 

While climate and environmental stressors increasingly affect people’s lives, MMC’s 4Mi data shows that they are rarely the sole reason people migrate. Among nearly 60,000 respondents globally (interviewed between 2021 and March 2024), only 4% initially cited environmental factors as a reason for leaving home. However, when asked directly, 23% acknowledged that climate played a role in their decision. This suggests that environmental change often operates as an indirect or compounding driver — worsening economic hardship, insecurity, or loss of livelihoods — rather than as a single cause of migration. Additionally, environmental factors are more commonly associated with short-distance, internal or regional mobility and less with long-distance international migration. 

MMC’s surveys and research show that asylum policies of destination countries are not the decisive factor in destination choice for most people. Furthermore, many refugees and migrants are not fully aware of country-specific asylum policies.

Using 4Mi data collected from a diverse global sample of almost 60,000 surveys with refugees and migrants carried out between January 2021 and March 2024, we investigated to what extent access to asylum is a factor in the choice of destination for people on the move. Globally, access to asylum was identified by 27% of the people interviewed, ranking as the sixth factor overall. The primary factor determining the choice of destination are economic opportunities in the destination country, cited by 68 percent of respondents, followed by better living standards (54%) and safety at destination country (41%). In Europe, where this narrative of access to asylum as a pull factor is particularly pervasive, respondents cite six other more important reasons for wanting to reach Europe before mentioning access to asylum.

As evidenced by MMC, smugglers do not lure people into irregular migration. A total of 60,000 surveys with migrants and refugees on the move in different regions (carried out between January 2021 and March 2024) showed that the main influencers remain friends and family. Only 4% of respondents globally indicated that smugglers influenced their decision to migrate.

The term “root causes of migration” is used to describe what are believed to be the underlying conditions that lead people to move — such as conflict, poverty, political instability, or climate change. The idea of root causes plays an important role in policies aiming to address and reduce irregular migration. However, the “root causes” narrative is flawed. It frames migration as a problem to be prevented rather than managed, leading to restrictive and deterrence-based policies that often worsen the very crises they aim to solve. It also oversimplifies migration by focusing only on why people leave (“push” factors), ignoring why people choose specific destinations and the global demand for migrant labour. And it tends to ‘forget’ about many of the actual and more fundamental drivers of migration.

Additionally, with the root causes narrative increasingly driving development policy, it leads to potentially problematic shifts in development funding based on relevance from a migration perspective which can be at odds with actual needs; it leads to a problematic measure of success of development projects (with development often driving more migration); and it leads to the use of development funding for migration management projects, often exacerbating instability and actually increasing the intensifying the drivers of migration and displacement.