Climate Change and International Migration: Evidence from Tajikistan
Murakami, Enerelt | December 2020
Abstract
This paper investigates the impact of environmental factors that indicate climate change on household decisions to migrate abroad in the case of Tajikistan, an environmentally vulnerable and a labor-migrant source country in Central Asia. Both long-term climate variation (measured by weather anomalies) and short-term weather shocks (proxied by floods) are considered as environmental factors that could induce migration from Tajikistan. Using two waves of a nationally representative household survey and employing an empirical method within the New Economics of Labor Migration theory framework, the results highlight the differing effects of environmental factors (depending on their type and intensity) on the probability to migrate abroad. The findings show that a rise in air temperature from its long-term average reduces emigration, while changes in precipitation have a non-linear impact on emigration. There are substantial differences in seasonal weather anomalies, of which winter temperature and precipitation have the most significant impact on household decisions to migrate. Sudden onset environmental shocks appear to have a lagged impact on emigration.
Citation
Murakami, Enerelt. 2020. Climate Change and International Migration: Evidence from Tajikistan. © Asian Development Bank Institute. http://hdl.handle.net/11540/12985. License: CC BY 3.0 IGO.Keywords
Cash transfer
Irregular migrants
Migrants
Informal economy
Climate
Climate change
Climate impacts assessment
Global climate change
Rural Development
Rural Development Projects
Rural Development Research
Aid And Development
Immigration
Trade in services
Services sector
GATS (General Agreement for Trade in Services)
Market access
Guest workers
Work permission
Visas
Migration
Rural Urban Migration
Climatic change
Climatic influence
Climatology
Investment bank
Investment policy
Rural areas
Rural economy
Rural planning
Rural poverty
Development potential
Rural planning
Climatic factor
Soils and climate
Dynamic climatology
Climate change mitigation
Communication in rural development
Rural enterprise zones
Rural manpower policy
Environment impact analysis
City planning
Urban climatology
Bank investment
Capital investment
Investment banking
Venture capital
Carbon dioxide mitigation
Carbon markets
Contributions
Meteorological forecasting
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