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Migration response to drought in Mali. An analysis using panel data on Malian localities over the 1987-2009 period

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  15 August 2022

Dimitri Defrance ,
Esther Delesalle  and
Flore Gubert Open the ORCID record for Flore Gubert [Opens in a new window]
Dimitri Defrance
Affiliation:
The Climate Data Factory, Paris, France
Esther Delesalle
Affiliation:
UMR Développement et Sociétés and IEDES-Paris 1 Sorbonne, Nogent-sur-Marne, France
Flore Gubert*
Affiliation:
IRD, Université PSL, LEDa, Université Paris Dauphine, CNRS, Paris, France
*
*Corresponding author. E-mail: gubert@dial.prd.fr
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Abstract

This paper combines population and climate data to estimate the volume of migration induced by the drought events that have hit Mali since the late 1980s. The results show that droughts have had the effect of decreasing net migration rates in the affected localities. This is true for both men and women, regardless of their age. The effect of drought episodes, however, is found to differ according to localities and households’ capacity to adapt to climatic constraints: it fades in localities characterized by more diversified crops and in areas that receive more rainfall on average. Climate shocks also had an impact on international mobility: over the 2004–2009 period, around 2300 additional departures per year can be attributed to the droughts that hit Mali during the 2000s. We forecast that, under different climate scenarios and population growth projections, mobility induced by drought events will substantially grow in the next decades.

Keywords

climate changemigrationMali

JEL classification

Q54: Climate • Natural Disasters and Their Management • Global Warming Q15: Land Ownership and Tenure • Land Reform • Land Use • Irrigation • Agriculture and Environment F22: International Migration O55: Africa

Information

Type
Research Article
Information
Environment and Development Economics , Volume 28 , Issue 2 , April 2023 , pp. 171 - 190
Copyright
Copyright © The Author(s), 2022. Published by Cambridge University Press

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