Interdependence between climate change and migration: Does agriculture, geography, and development level matter in sub‐Saharan Africa?

Abstract

AbstractConcerns about the human effects of climate change have contributed to forecasts of how populations in drought‐prone and flood‐prone areas would respond to these events. Empirical studies have predicted that human migration has been among the critical resilient strategy in responding to the impact of climate change. To obtain a more comprehensive understanding of the climate–migration relationship, the impacts of climate change on international migration flows from sub‐Saharan Africa nations to South Africa are investigated empirically in this paper. The study employed static and dynamic models and panel data from 35 countries in sub‐Saharan Africa, spanning 1990 to 2017. The findings are as follows: (1) The analysis shows that historical temperature has a positive and statistically significant effect on outmigration in agriculture‐dependent nations. (2) The analysis shows that agricultural value added as a share in gross domestic product has a negative and statistically significant effect on outmigration in agriculture‐dependent nations. (3) The results also show that geographic location and development level of a country, in addition to dependency on agriculture, are key factors in the climate change–international migration nexus. Policy implications are discussed.