Climate change, agriculture and migration: Evidence from Bangladesh

 

Abstract

Changes in climatic variables influence households’ decision regarding livelihood options and strategies to mitigate income shocks. Migration is one of the most frequently adopted coping strategies that affected people use. This paper studies how the changes in climatic variables such as temperature and rainfall impact migration through agriculture. Using district level data (64 districts) for three inter-census periods (1974–1980, 1981–1990 and 1991–2000), fixed effect (FE) and IV results show that uncertainty about changes in temperature and rainfall impacts migration through agricultural productivity. We found that a one standard deviation decrease in real per capita revenue increases net out-migration rates by 1.4% to 2.4%. The results suggest a predicted increase in rainfall uncertainty would increase net out-migration rates by 20% in 2030 relative to 1990, assuming that there will be no behavioral response from the farmers.