The impact of water access on short‐term migration in rural India

Esha Zaveri, Douglas H. Wrenn and Karen Fisher‐Vanden
Authors registered in the RePEc Author Service: Karen Fisher-Vanden

Australian Journal of Agricultural and Resource Economics, 2020, vol. 64, issue 2, 505-532

Abstract: Migration is an important risk‐reduction strategy for households in developing countries. In this paper, we examine the impact of rainfall variability and irrigation availability on short‐term migration decisions in India. Our results show that both rainfall shocks and the availability of irrigation impact the decisions of households to dispatch migrants. For irrigation, we find that migration responds to costs and that deep fossil‐water wells, which provide a constant source of water, eliminate any benefit of short‐term migration. This suggests that regions with access to more secure and stable sources of water are less likely to rely on migration as an income‐smoothing mechanism, at least in the short run. Whether this holds in the long run will depend on the continued stability and availability of irrigation water.

Date: 2020
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (6)

Downloads: (external link)
https://doi.org/10.1111/1467-8489.12364

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:bla:ajarec:v:64:y:2020:i:2:p:505-532

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
http://ordering.onli ... 1111/(ISSN)1467-8489

Access Statistics for this article

Australian Journal of Agricultural and Resource Economics is currently edited by John Rolfe, Lin Crase and John Tisdell

More articles in Australian Journal of Agricultural and Resource Economics from Australian Agricultural and Resource Economics Society Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Wiley Content Delivery ().