Journal
ENVIRONMENTAL RESEARCH LETTERS
Volume 10, Issue 11, Pages -Publisher
IOP Publishing Ltd
DOI: 10.1088/1748-9326/10/11/114023
Keywords
climate change; climate migration; international migration; rural livelihoods; urban livelihoods; Mexico; environment
Funding
- Minnesota Population Center [5R24HD041023]
- University of Colorado Population Center from the Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute for Child Health and Human Development (NICHD) [R24 HD066613]
- National Science Foundation (NSF Award) [ACI-0940818]
- Office of Advanced Cyberinfrastructure (OAC)
- Direct For Computer & Info Scie & Enginr [0940818] Funding Source: National Science Foundation
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Studies investigating migration as a response to climate variability have largely focused on rural locations to the exclusion of urban areas. This lack of urban focus is unfortunate given the sheer numbers of urban residents and continuing high levels of urbanization. To begin filling this empirical gap, this study investigates climate change impacts on US-bound migration from rural and urban Mexico, 1986-1999. We employ geostatistical interpolation methods to construct two climate change indices, capturing warm and wet spell duration, based on daily temperature and precipitation readings for 214 weather stations across Mexico. In combination with detailed migration histories obtained from the Mexican Migration Project, we model the influence of climate change on household-level migration from 68 rural and 49 urban municipalities. Results from multilevel event-history models reveal that a temperature warming and excessive precipitation significantly increased international migration during the study period. However, climate change impacts on international migration is only observed for rural areas. Interactions reveal a causal pathway in which temperature (but not precipitation) influences migration patterns through employment in the agricultural sector. As such, climate-related international migration may decline with continued urbanization and the resulting reductions in direct dependence of households on rural agriculture.
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