Heterogeneity in Migration Responses to Climate Shocks: Evidence from Madagascar

Francesca Marchetta, David Sahn, Luca Tiberti and Johany Dufour ()
Additional contact information
Johany Dufour: Université Laval

No 14052, IZA Discussion Papers from Institute of Labor Economics (IZA)

Abstract: We analyze the impact of climate events on migration among a cohort of young adults residing in rural Madagascar. We find a strong negative impact of drought on the decision of youth to migrate in the year after the adverse weather shock. Household assets and access to savings institutions attenuate this impact, consistent with the notion that wealth and savings cushion the blow of the shock on the resources required to finance migration. We also find that households that report more social connections outside their villages are more likely to have their young adult members migrate. Our findings suggest that the liquidity constraints from climate shocks that prevent youth migration are more binding for young women who migrate largely for reasons of marriage and education. Males, in contrast, are more likely to migrate in search of employment, which often has higher economic returns than migration motivated by marriage and education. These factors likely explain why drought deters migration of young women, but not so for young men who still choose to migrate in search of a job.

Keywords: climate shocks; Madagascar; youth migration; internal migration (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: J13 N3 N57 O15 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 35 pages
Date: 2021-01
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-afr, nep-env, nep-lab and nep-mig
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (2)

Downloads: (external link)
https://docs.iza.org/dp14052.pdf (application/pdf)

Related works:
Working Paper: Heterogeneity in migration responses to climate shocks: evidence from Madagascar (2021)
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:iza:izadps:dp14052

Ordering information: This working paper can be ordered from
IZA, Margard Ody, P.O. Box 7240, D-53072 Bonn, Germany

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in IZA Discussion Papers from Institute of Labor Economics (IZA) IZA, P.O. Box 7240, D-53072 Bonn, Germany. Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Holger Hinte ().