Internal Migration as a Response to Soil Degradation: Evidence from Malawi

Keiti Kondi () and Stefanija Veljanoska ()
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Keiti Kondi: UNIVERSITE CATHOLIQUE DE LOUVAIN, Institut de Recherches Economiques et Sociales (IRES)
Stefanija Veljanoska: CREM, Université de Rennes

No 2023004, LIDAM Discussion Papers IRES from Université catholique de Louvain, Institut de Recherches Economiques et Sociales (IRES)

Abstract: We study how the slow deterioration of soil, caused by climate change, affects internal migration and household resettlement. Rural households are expected to move when they face worsening soil conditions, as soil degradation is detrimental to agricultural productivity. The other possibility is that they can get stuck in a poverty trap. We use the Integrated Household Survey in Malawi for the years 2010-2016. Soil depletion is not a random process and to account for its endogeneity, we instrument soil degradation by using distant climate shocks and controlling for recent weather conditions. We find that severe soil nutrient constraints push households to send their members away. The underlying mechanism is that soil degradation is harmful to agricultural productivity, and therefore food security, which incentivizes households to seek better opportunities by pushing their members to migrate.

Keywords: land degradation; migration; internal migration; resettlement; land quality; climate change; soil nutrition (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: J1 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2023-01-13
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-agr, nep-dev, nep-env and nep-mig
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:ctl:louvir:2023004

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