Hostname: page-component-8448b6f56d-gtxcr Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-04-24T05:44:17.773Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Do social protection programs foster short-term and long-term migration adaptation strategies?

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 August 2019

Valerie Mueller ,
Clark Gray ,
Sudhanshu Handa  and
David Seidenfeld
Valerie Mueller*
Affiliation:
Arizona State University, International Food Policy Research Institute, Tempe, Arizona, USA
Clark Gray
Affiliation:
University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, North Carolina, USA
Sudhanshu Handa
Affiliation:
University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, North Carolina, USA
David Seidenfeld
Affiliation:
American Institutes of Research, Washington, DC, USA
*
*Corresponding author. E-mail: vmuelle1@asu.edu
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

We examine how migration is influenced by temperature and precipitation variability, and the extent to which the receipt of a cash transfer affects the use of migration as an adaptation strategy. Climate data is merged with georeferenced panel data (2010–2014) on individual migration collected from the Zambian Child Grant Program (CGP) sites. We use the person-year dataset to identify the direct and heterogeneous causal effects of the CGP on mobility. Having access to cash transfers doubles the rate of male, short-distance moves during cool periods, irrespective of wealth. Receipt of cash transfers (among wealthier households) during extreme heat causes an additional retention of males. Cash transfers positively spur long-distance migration under normal climate conditions in the long term. They also facilitate short-distance responses to climate, but not long-distance responses that might be demanded by future climate change.

Keywords

adaptationclimate variabilitymigrationsocial protectionZambia
Type
Research Article
Information
Environment and Development Economics , Volume 25 , Issue 2 , April 2020 , pp. 135 - 158
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2019

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Angelucci, M (2015) Migration and financial constraints: evidence from Mexico. Review of Economics and Statistics 97, 224–228.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Asfaw, S, Carraro, A, Davis, B, Handa, S and Seidenfeld, D (2017) Cash transfer programs, weather shocks and household welfare: evidence from a randomized experiment in Zambia. Journal of Development Effectiveness 9, 419–442.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Barrett, C and Constas, M (2014) Toward a theory of resilience for international development applications. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 111, 14625–14630.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bazzi, S (2017) Wealth heterogeneity and the income elasticity of migration. American Economic Journal: Applied Economics 9, 219–255.Google Scholar
Beegle, K, De Weerdt, J and Dercon, S (2011) Migration and economic mobility in Tanzania: evidence from a tracking survey. Review of Economics and Statistics 93, 1010–1033.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Black, R and Collyer, M (2014) ‘Trapped’ populations: limits on mobility at times of crisis. In Martin, SF, Weerasinghe, S and Taylor, A (eds), Humanitarian Crises and Migration: Causes, Consequences and Responses. Abingdon: Routledge, pp. 287–305.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Black, R, Bennett, S, Thomas, S and Beddington, J (2011) Climate change: migration as adaptation. Nature 478, 447–449.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Bohra-Mishra, P, Oppenheimer, M and Hsiang, S (2014) Nonlinear permanent migration response to climatic variations but minimal response to disasters. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 111, 9780–9785.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Bryan, G, Chowdhury, S and Mobarak, A (2014) Under-investment in a profitable technology: the case of seasonal migration in Bangladesh. Econometrica 82, 1671–1748.Google Scholar
Carrington, W, Detragiache, E and Vishwanath, T (1996) Migration with endogenous moving costs. American Economic Review 86, 909–930.Google Scholar
Ceballos, F and Robles, M (2014) Weather risks and insurance opportunities for the rural poor. IFPRI 2020 Conference Brief 10, International Food Policy Research Institute, Washington, DC.Google Scholar
Chort, I and de la Rupelle, M (2017) Managing the impact of climate change on migration: evidence from Mexico. GLO Discussion Paper No. 78, Global Labor Organization, Maastricht.Google Scholar
Clemens, M (2010) A labor mobility agenda for development. Center for Global Development Working Paper 201, Center for Global Development, Washington, DC.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
De Weerdt, J and Hirvonen, K (2016) Risk sharing and internal migration. Economic Development and Cultural Change 65, 63–86.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Feng, S, Krueger, A and Oppenheimer, M (2010) Linkages among climate change, crop yields and Mexico-US cross-border migration. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 107, 14257–14262.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Funk, C, Peterson, P, Landsfeld, M, Pedreros, D, Verdin, J, Shukla, S, Husak, G, Rowland, J, Harrison, L, Hoell, A and Michaelsen, J (2015) The climate hazards infrared precipitation with stations—a new environmental record for monitoring extremes. Scientific Data 2, 1–21.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Fussell, E, Hunter, L and Gray, C (2014) Measuring the environmental dimensions of human migration: the demographer's toolkit. Global Environmental Change 28, 182–191.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Gemenne, F (2011) Why the numbers don't add up: a review of estimates and predictions of people displaced by environmental changes. Global Environmental Change 21S, S41–S49.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Gray, C and Mueller, V (2012) Natural disaster and population mobility in Bangladesh. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 109, 6000–6005.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Gray, C and Wise, E (2016) Country-specific effects of climate variability on human migration. Climatic Change 135, 555–568.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Handa, S, Seidenfeld, D, Davis, B and Tembo, G and the Zambia Cash Transfer Evaluation Team (2016) The social and productive impacts of Zambia's child grant. Journal of Policy Analysis and Management 35, 357–387.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Handa, S, Natali, L, Seidenfeld, D, Tembo, G and Davis, B and on behalf of the Zambia Cash Transfer Evaluation Study Team (2018) Can unconditional cash transfers raise long-term living standards? Evidence from Zambia. Journal of Development Economics 133, 42–65.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Henry, S, Schoumaker, B and Beauchemin, C (2004) The impact of rainfall on the first out-migration: a multi-level event-history analysis in Burkina Faso. Population and Environment 25, 423–460.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hidrobo, M, Hoddinott, J, Peterman, A, Margolies, A and Moreira, V (2014) Cash, food, or vouchers? Evidence from a randomized experiment in northern Ecuador. Journal of Development Economics 107, 144–156.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hoddinott, J and Mekasha, T (2017) Social protection, household size and its determinants: evidence from Ethiopia. Ethiopia Strategy Support Program Working Paper 107, International Food Policy Research Institute, Washington, DC.Google Scholar
IPCC (2013) Climate Change 2013: The Physical Science Basis. Contribution of Working Group I to the Fifth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. Summary for Policymakers. Stocker TF, Qin D, Plattner G-K, Tignor M, Allen SK, Boschung J, Nauels A, Xia Y, Bex V and Midgley PM (eds), Cambridge, UK and New York, NY: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Jensen, N, Barrett, C and Mude, A (2017) Cash transfers and index insurance: a comparative impact analysis from northern Kenya. Journal of Development Economics 129, 14–28.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kleemans, M (2015) Migration choice under risk and liquidity constraints. Working Paper, University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign.Google Scholar
Maystadt, J-F, Mueller, V and Sebastian, A (2016) Environmental migration and labor markets in Nepal. Journal of the Association of Environmental and Resource Economics 3, 417–452.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Mbaye, L and Zimmerman, K (2016) Natural disasters and human mobility. ZEF–Center for Development Research, University of Bonn, Working Paper 151.Google Scholar
Morten, M (2017) Temporary migration and endogenous risk sharing in village India. NBER Working Paper 22159, National Bureau of Economic Research, Cambridge, MA.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Mueller, V, Gray, C and Kosec, K (2014) Heat stress increases long-term human migration in rural Pakistan. Nature Climate Change 4, 182–185.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Munshi, K (2003) Networks in the modern economy: Mexican migrants in the U.S. labor market. Quarterly Journal of Economics 118, 549–597.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Nawrotzki, R and DeWaard, J (2018) Putting trapped populations into place: climate change and inter-district migration flows in Zambia. Regional Environmental Change 18, 533–546.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Nawrotzki, RJ, Riosmena, F, Hunter, LM and Runfola, DM (2015) Amplification or suppression: social networks and the climate change–migration association in rural Mexico. Global Environmental Change 35, 463–474.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Palermo, T, Handa, S, Peterman, A, Prencipe, L and Seidenfeld, D and on behalf of the Zambia CGP Evaluation Team (2016) Unconditional government social cash transfer in Africa does not increase fertility. Journal of Population Economics 29, 1083–1111.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Pankhurst, A, Dessalegn, M, Mueller, V and Hailemariam, M (2013) Migration and resettlement in Ethiopia: reflections on trends and implications for food security. In Pankhurst, A, Rahmato, D and Van Uffelen, G (eds). Food Security, Safety Nets and Social Protection: The Ethiopian Experience. Addis Ababa, Ethiopia: Forum for Social Studies, pp. 219–273.Google Scholar
Robalino, J, Jimenez, J and Chacon, A (2014) The effect of hydro-meteorological emergencies on internal migration. World Development 67, 438–448.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Seidenfeld, D and Handa, S (2011) Zambia's Child Grant Program: Baseline Report. American Institutes for Research, Washington, DC.Google Scholar
Stark, O and Lucas, R (1988) Migration, remittances, and the family. Economic Development and Cultural Change 36, 465–481.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Stecklov, G, Winters, P, Stampini, M and Davis, B (2005) Do conditional cash transfers influence migration? A study using experimental data from the Mexican Progresa Program. Demography 42, 769–790.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Strobl, E and Valfort, M-A (2015) The effect of weather-induced internal migration on local labor markets: evidence from Uganda. World Bank Economic Review 29, 385–412.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Thiede, B, Gray, C and Mueller, V (2016) Climate variability and the inter-provincial migration in South America, 1970–2011. Global Environmental Change 41, 228–240.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
UEACRU (University of East Anglia Climatic Research Unit), Harris, IC and Jones, PD (2017) CRU TS4.00: Climatic Research Unit (CRU) Time-Series (TS) version 4.00 of high-resolution gridded data of month-by-month variation in climate (Jan. 1901- Dec. 2015). Centre of Environmental Data Analysis, 25 August 2017. Available at https://doi.org/10.5285/edf8febfdaad48abb2cbaf7d7e846a86.Google Scholar
Zhang, Q, Kornich, H and Holmgren, K (2013) How well do reanalyses represent the southern african precipitation? Climate Dynamics 40, 951–962.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Supplementary material: PDF

Mueller et al. supplementary material

Online Appendix

Download Mueller et al. supplementary material(PDF)
PDF 626.3 KB