Population Migration and Human Civilization

Population migration has played a great role in the history of human civilization. It is precisely because of the migration of population that mankind has been able to spread from its original birthplace to every corner of the world today. Population migration is closely related to human economy, society and culture, and the objectives and contents of population migration fully reflect the changes in human economic, social and cultural environment.

Personally, the purpose of immigration may be to seek a broader living space and better economic opportunities, or it may be due to racial, political and religious reasons. Population migration will have various influences on the social and economic structure of the emigration and immigration areas, which may be beneficial or harmful from the perspective of a country's overall development plan. Starting from the overall interests of national development, governments of various countries have formulated various policies that directly and indirectly affect population migration until they directly and purposefully organize population migration.

Since the founding of New China, governments at all levels in China have organized many large-scale population movements. By 1985, the number of immigrants between provinces (regions) alone exceeded 2 million. Mainly to reclaim wasteland, expand cultivated land, and support the construction of frontier and minority areas with less labor force. Overall, the effect is not ideal (1). Since 1983, most of the immigrants in the northwest "Three Wests" area are another large-scale rural policy immigration organized by the government. According to this resettlement plan, 400,000 people will be relocated from Dingxi area of Gansu Province and Xihaigu area of Ningxia Autonomous Region10/400,000 in the ten years from 1983 to 1992, so as to solve the problem of population overload in the relocated areas and develop the northwest wasteland.

Due to the lag of sociology in China, the number of analysis and research on policy migration from the perspective of sociology is small, and the previous migration projects have caused many difficulties for today's research because of the passage of time. At present, the three-west migration project being implemented provides a good opportunity for our research. Studying such an important event as the history of population migration and the history of human anti-poverty struggle can not only strengthen the research in this field in domestic sociology, but also provide suggestions for the government through research, which has certain practical significance.