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Concerns about the human effects of climate change have contributed to forecasts of how populations in drought-prone and flood-prone areas would respond to these events. Empirical studies have predicted that human migration has been among the critical resilient strategy in responding to the impact of climate change. To obtain a more comprehensive understanding of the climate–migration relationship, the impacts of climate change on international migration flows from sub-Saharan Africa nations...

Africa is likely to experience warming and increased climate variability by the late 21st century. Climate extremes have been linked to adverse economic outcomes. Hence, adaptation is a key component of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change agreements and development assistance. Effective climate adaptation policy requires an understanding of how temperature and rainfall variability affect migration patterns. Yet, how individuals in developing countries manage climate...

In this paper, we add to the literature on the driving forces of international migration out of Africa. We particularly focus on the direct effect of climate variables: temperature, rainfall, and weather-related disaster. We revisit the question whether climate is a driver or inhibitor of migration using migration flows out of all African countries from 1980 to 2015 into 16 OECD countries. Our findings show that climate can be a driver and an inhibitor of migration depending on the size of...

Subsistence farmers in Sahelian Africa are highly vulnerable to the rainfall effects associated with climate change. Permanent or temporary out-migration can provide an individual or family the opportunity to mitigate against these effects. One major challenge to quantifying the impact of climate change on out-migration is lack of appropriate spatial and temporal data. Out-migration data must be adequately detailed to include both long- and short-term departures. The climate data must...

While there is considerable interest in understanding the climate–migration relationship, particularly in the context of concerns about global climatic change, little is known about its underlying mechanisms. In the paper, we combine a rich panel data on annual bilateral international migration flows with an extensive data on climate variability across the countries to investigate in-depth the climate–migration link. We find a positive and statistically significant relationship between...

Climate change, especially the warming trend experienced in recent years by several countries, could affect agricultural productivity. As a consequence the income of rural populations will change, and with it the incentives for people to remain in rural areas. Using data from 115 countries between 1960 and 2000, we analyze the effect of differential warming trends across countries on the probability of either migrating out of the country or from rural to urban areas. We find that higher...

This paper reviews empirical research on migration and land use impacts associated with climate change. Household migration arises due to changes in economic opportunities and climate amenities resulting from climate change. Throughout the paper, efforts are made to highlight key empirical findings as well as areas in need of additional research. The existing literature is discussed through the lens of reduced form and structural approaches paying particular attention to preference...

We present a microlevel study to simultaneously investigate the effects of variations in temperature and precipitation along with sudden natural disasters to infer their relative influence on migration that is likely permanent. The study is made possible by the availability of household panel data from Indonesia with an exceptional tracking rate combined with frequent occurrence of natural disasters and significant climatic variations, thus providing a quasi-experiment to examine the...

Human migration attributable to climate events has recently received significant attention from the academic and policy communities (1-2). Quantitative evidence on the relationship between individual, permanent migration and natural disasters is limited (3-9). A 21-year longitudinal survey conducted in rural Pakistan (1991-2012) provides a unique opportunity to understand the relationship between weather and long-term migration. We link individual-level information from this survey to...

This study examines whether environmental migrants in Bangladesh move permanently or temporarily. The analyses are based on data collected in 2010 and 2011, and cover four themes, namely migrant characteristics, environmental change related factors, conflict and adaptation strategies, and social networks. The estimates obtained from binary logit models show that most sets of variables have statistically significant impacts on the temporary migration versus permanent migration decision....

Empirical work on the relationship between environmental stress and human migration has blossomed over the last 10 years. While such work has provided important insights into this relationship, there has been, to date, limited effort expended on generating a generalisable framework for apprehending such interactions. This paper seeks to address this deficit. Based on semi-structured interviews in two sending and four receiving areas in northern Ethiopia, it explores dominant mobility...

This paper analyzes the effects of weather anomalies on migration in sub-Saharan Africa. We present a theoretical model that demonstrates how weather anomalies induce rural–urban migration that subsequently triggers international migration. We distinguish two transmission channels, an amenity channel and an economic geography channel. Based on annual, cross-country panel data for sub-Saharan Africa, we present an empirical model that suggests that weather anomalies increased internal and...

Climate change has become a major concern for the international community. Among its consequences, its impact on migration is the object of increasing attention from both policy-makers and researchers. Yet, knowledge in this field remains limited and fragmented. This article therefore provides an overview of the climate change – migration nexus: on the basis of available empirical findings, it investigates the key issues at stake, including the social and political context in which the topic...

Climate change is expected to cause mass human migration, including immigration across international borders. This study quantitatively examines the linkages among variations in climate, agricultural yields, and people's migration responses by using an instrumental variables approach. Our method allows us to identify the relationship between crop yields and migration without explicitly controlling for all other confounding factors. Using state-level data from Mexico, we find a significant...

Journal Article The Determinants of Migration from Sub-Saharan African Countries Get access Wim Naudé Wim Naudé * World Institute for Development Economics Research, United Nations University, Helsinki, Finland *Corresponding author: E-mail: wim@wider.unu.edu Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Google Scholar Journal of African Economies, Volume 19, Issue 3, June 2010, Pages 330–356, https://doi.org/10.1093/jae/ejq004 Published: 09 March 2010

This paper shows the extent to which people in Funafuti – the main island of Tuvalu – are intending to migrate in response to climate change. It presents evidence collected from Funafuti to challenge the widely held assumption that climate change is, will, or should result in large-scale migration from Tuvalu. It shows that for most people climate change is not a reason for concern, let alone a reason to migrate, and that would-be migrants do not cite climate change as a reason to leave....

We investigate the role that climatic change has played in the pattern of urbanization in sub-Saharan African countries compared to the rest of the developing world. To this end we assemble a cross-country panel data set that allows us to estimate the determinants of urbanization. The results of our econometric analysis suggest that climatic change, as proxied by rainfall, has acted to change urbanization in sub-Saharan Africa but not elsewhere in the developing world. Moreover, this link...