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Domestic and international migration intentions in response to environmental stress: A global cross-country analysis

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 March 2021

Els Bekaert ,
Ilse Ruyssen  and
Sara Salomone
Els Bekaert*
Affiliation:
Dep of Economics, CESSMIR, Ghent University, Gent, Belgium; UNU-CRIS, Potterierei 72, B-8000Bruges, Belgium
Ilse Ruyssen
Affiliation:
Dep of Economics, CESSMIR, Ghent University, Gent, Belgium; IRES, UCLouvain, Louvain-la-Neuve, Belgium
Sara Salomone
Affiliation:
Dep of Economics, CESSMIR, Ghent University, Gent, Belgium; UNU-CRIS, Potterierei 72, B-8000Bruges, Belgium
*
*Corresponding author. E-mail: ebekaert@cris.unu.edu
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Abstract

In light of increasing environmental stress and its likely implications for migration patterns, we conduct a cross-country individual-level analysis of the impact of self-reported exposure to environmental stress on people's migration intentions and their destination choice. We simultaneously model intentions to migrate domestically and internationally for 90 countries worldwide in 2010. We find that self-reported exposure to environmental stress increases the probability to intend to migrate both domestically and internationally in the coming year. In absolute terms, the largest impact is obtained for domestic migration, but controlling for the fact that this is the most common form of migration anyway, environmental stress particularly raises intraregional migration intentions. Overall, the effects on migration intentions to the different destinations are strongest in low- and middle-income countries in Africa and Latin America and the Caribbean, while in high-income countries, and in Europe particularly, environmental stress appears to spur only domestic migration intentions.

Keywords

Destination choicedomestic migrationinternational migrationmigration intentionsself-reported environmental stress

JEL classification

O13: Agriculture • Natural Resources • Energy • Environment • Other Primary Products O15: Human Resources • Human Development • Income Distribution • Migration R23: Regional Migration • Regional Labor Markets • Population • Neighborhood Characteristics F22: International Migration
Type
Research Paper
Information
Journal of Demographic Economics , Volume 87 , Special Issue 3: Climate Migration , September 2021 , pp. 383 - 436
Copyright
Copyright © Université catholique de Louvain 2021

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