(en) European Migration and Imperialism. Gearchiveerd op 17 december 2014. Geraadpleegd op 8 mei 2015. “The population of Europe entered its third and decisive stage in the early eighteenth century. Birthrates declined, but death rates also declined as the standard of living and advances in medical science provided for longer life spans. The population of Europe including Russia more than doubled from 188 million in 1800 to 432 million in 1900. From 1815 through 1932, sixty million people left Europe, primarily to "areas of European settlement," in North and South America, Australia, New Zealand and Siberia. These populations also multiplied rapidly in their new habitat; much more so than the populations of Africa and Asia. As a result, on the eve of World War One (1914), 38 percent of the world’s total population was of European ancestry. This growth in population provided further impetus for European expansion, and became the driving force behind emigration. Rising populations put pressure on land, and land hunger and led to "land hunger." Millions of people went abroad in search of work or economic opportunity. The Irish, who left for America during the great Potato famine, were an extreme but not unique example. Ultimately, one third of all European migrants came from the British Isles between 1840 and 1920. Italians also migrated in large numbers because of poor economic conditions in their home country. German migration also was steady until industrial conditions in Germany improved when the wave of migration slowed. Less than one half of all migrants went to the United States, although it absorbed the largest number of European migrants. Others went to Asiatic Russia, Canada, Argentina, Brazil, Australia and New Zealand.”
