Motivation of Emigrants

Abstract

One of the most interesting but also one of the most difficult problems connected with the analysis of migration is to differentiate economic from personal motivation. In a broad sense, emigration has become a topic of interest in the Netherlands because of the doubt as to whether the postwar Dutch economy will be able to support the growing population at the prewar standard or, what is more to the point, at the standard that emigrants can hope to reach overseas. However, there is not a direct relation in every case between the individual family’s economic situation and its decision to emigrate; the complex factors that may be termed personal influences can in many cases be decisive. To analyze these, however, would require a questionnaire among an adequate sample of both emigrants and non- emigrants, as a minimum, and preferably also an analysis of mail and other personal contacts with persons overseas. The data available do not permit anything on this scale, but the following two comparisons may be suggestive, however incomplete.