The phrase "act as a push" is correct and usable in written English.
It can be used to describe something that serves as a motivation or encouragement to take action or make a decision.
Example: "The recent success of our competitors acted as a push for us to innovate and improve our product line."
Alternatives: "serve as a motivator" or "function as an incentive".
It is possible to say, that breathing of polluted air should destroy human health, so pollution can act as a part of living costs (negative externality) and thus it can act as a "push" factor for people to migrate.
If the observed wage pattern continues to exist, low returns to experience will not only act as a push factor away from rural areas and into cities but also serve as an impediment for return migration.
We believe that, if the observed wage pattern continues to exist, the low returns to experience in rural areas will not only act as a push factor away from rural areas into large cities, but also serve as an impediment for return migration.
In the hairy root lines, overexpressing upstream key enzyme and downstream branch-controlling enzyme may act as a push-pull effect in which flux is pushed toward the branch point by AaPMT and then pulled toward the desired product by AaTRI.
Devolution must act as a pull, rather than a push.
Although the sudden shifts occur naturally, the changes in the environment, including flooding the atmosphere with carbon dioxide or cutting swaths of rain forests, could act as a final push, the scientists said.
Amer and Fargues (2014) analyze migration intentions of young Egyptians after the 2011 uprising and find that the perception of increased insecurity and political instability following the revolution act as a new push factor for migration.
The one benefit of depression for me is that it can act as a goad, pushing me to search for something new — new feelings rather than depressed ones, new sounds rather than those with which I am too familiar.
SF: Hyperloop correctly notes that a capsule moving in a pipeline can act as a plug, pushing a lot of air ahead of it.
The United States Senate could vote on the USA FREEDOM Act as soon as next week, pushing the surveillance reform bill ahead this year.
The chair of the Senate's committee on small business, Landrieu used the National Defense Authorization Act as a vehicle to push ahead her bill.
