Pull factor

Migration involved push factors, which encouraged people to leave, and pull factors, which attracted them elsewhere. Often these worked together: hardship at home made an uncertain opportunity in the West seem worth the risk.

A pull factor is something about a destination that attracts migrants. Employment, safety, family connections and the prospect of better living conditions can all draw people towards a particular place.

The opportunity to obtain valuable goods attracted raiders: this was a pull factor. Chiefs arrived with groups of followers, sometimes numbering hundreds. They travelled to eastern England by boat, obtained horses and used Roman roads to raid inland.

Factories therefore acted as a pull factor: the prospect of employment attracted people to industrial towns and cities. The connection was not simply that towns became larger. New ways of producing goods changed the location of work, encouraging people to change where they lived.