We evaluate how changes in weather patterns affected rural-urban migration across 41 sub-Saharan African countries, by age and sex, over the 1980–2015 period. We combine recent age- and sex-specific estimates of net rural-urban migration with historical data on rainfall and temperature from the Climate Research Unit (CRU). We also compare standard unweighted estimates of rainfall and temperature to estimates weighted by the proportion of the country’s total rural population in the CRU grid. Results show that rural out-migration of young adults is the most sensitive to shifts in weather patterns, with lower rainfall, lower variability in rainfall, and higher temperatures increasing subsequent rural out-migration—though the last of these is not observed in weighted models. The strength of these effects has grown stronger over time for 20–24 year olds, though weaker above age 30. In contrast, increasing temperature variability is associated with a higher rural in-migration of children (0–9) and older adults (55–64). Gender differences in these effects are minimal and concentrated in areas which experienced heavy reductions in rainfall.

我们按年龄和性别评估了41个撒哈拉以南非洲国家中天气模式的变化如何影响农村向城市的迁徙，其年龄和性别分别为1980-2015年。我们将近期针对农村和城市净迁移的特定年龄和性别估算值与气候研究组（CRU）的降雨和温度历史数据结合在一起。我们还将标准的未加权降雨和温度估算值与按CRU网格中该国农村总人口比例加权的估算值进行比较。结果表明，年轻人的农村外出人口对天气模式的变化最敏感，降雨减少，降雨量变化少，温度升高使随后的农村外出人口增加-尽管在加权模型中没有观察到最后一个。这些影响的强度随着时间的推移在20-24岁之间逐渐增强，尽管在30岁以上时减弱。相反，温度变化性的增加与儿童（0-9岁）和老年人（55岁）的农村移民增加有关–64）。这些影响的性别差异极小，且集中在降雨大量减少的地区。