AN EXAMINATION OF CLIMATE VARIABILITY AND INTERNATIONAL MIGRATION IN SUB-SAHARAN AFRICA

Abstract

There is a growing interest in studying international human migration flows as a response to climate change. A global preliminary analysis, using panel1 OECD migration data for the time period 1980 – 2010, suggests the importance of an agricultural linkage between variations in monthly temperature and precipitation and international migration in agriculture-dependent countries. This preliminary analysis supports a positive and statistically significant relationship between temperature and international outmigration among highly agriculture-dependent countries at the global level, suggesting that high temperatures are contributing to decreased agricultural productivity in origin countries. The purpose of this study is to assess the relationship between climate and international outmigration, in the context of this agricultural linkage, in the region of sub-Saharan Africa. Context-specific factors unique to outmigration from Sub-Saharan Africa provide the basis for performing a modified empirical analysis for these countries exclusively. In other words, Sub- Saharan Africa is highly dependent on climate-sensitive economic sectors, such as agriculture, and as a result is exceptionally vulnerable to extreme local weather conditions. By narrowing the scope of the global, aggregate analysis to Sub-Saharan Africa, a predominantly agricultural region, we observe a more positive and statistically significant, non-linear relationship betweentemperature variations and international outmigration from the region. Our results suggest that the significance of the global agricultural linkage could be attributed to non-linear effects of temperature and driven by migration primarily from source countries located in Sub-Saharan Africa. 1 Panel data describes those cross-sectional time-series datasets in which entities (individuals, households, countries, etc.) are observed over fixed periods of time.