Environmental Stressors and Migration: Evidence from Vietnam

Koubi, Vally; Spilker, Gabriele; Schaffer, Lena; Bernauer, Thomas (2016). Environmental Stressors and Migration: Evidence from Vietnam. World development, 79(March), pp. 197-210. Elsevier 10.1016/j.worlddev.2015.11.016

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The argument that environmental change is an important driving force of migration has experienced a strong revival in the climate change context. While various studies predict large environmental migration flows due to climate change and other environmental events, the ex post empirical evidence for this phenomenon is inconclusive. We contribute to the extant literature by focusing on the micro-level. We examine whether and how individual perceptions of different types of environmental stressors induce internal migration. The analysis relies on original survey data from Vietnam including both migrants and non-migrants. The results suggest that individual perceptions of long-term environmental events, such as droughts, significantly reduce migration while perceptions of sudden-onset environmental events, such as floods, significantly increase the likelihood of migration controlling for other determinants of migration. These findings also imply that improving the targeting of aid to environmental disaster-affected areas and the financial and technical support for adaptation to environmental change could be the most productive policy-options. Policymakers, thus, need to implement a wide range of developmental policies in combination with environmental ones in order to improve society’s ability to effectively cope with environmental change and minimize its effect on migration.

Item Type:

Journal Article (Original Article)

Division/Institute:

02 Faculty of Law > Department of Economic Law > World Trade Institute
10 Strategic Research Centers > World Trade Institute

03 Faculty of Business, Economics and Social Sciences > Social Sciences > Institute of Political Science
03 Faculty of Business, Economics and Social Sciences > Department of Economics

UniBE Contributor:

Koubi, Vasiliki, Schaffer, Lena Maria, Bernauer, Thomas

Subjects:

300 Social sciences, sociology & anthropology > 320 Political science
300 Social sciences, sociology & anthropology > 380 Commerce, communications & transportation
300 Social sciences, sociology & anthropology > 350 Public administration & military science
300 Social sciences, sociology & anthropology
300 Social sciences, sociology & anthropology > 330 Economics

ISSN:

0305-750X

Publisher:

Elsevier

Language:

English

Submitter:

Dino Collalti

Date Deposited:

02 Feb 2017 11:30

Last Modified:

02 Mar 2023 23:28

Publisher DOI:

10.1016/j.worlddev.2015.11.016

URI:

https://boris.unibe.ch/id/eprint/93184

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