Box 2.2 Choosing Not to Migrate Box 2.3 Measuring the Buffering Effect of Gray and

BOX 2.2: Choosing Not to Migrate

Even as economics views the world as irrepressibly dynamic, few would dispute the notion that markets in poor countries are full of “friction.” In addition to restricting budgets and making it too costly for people to migrate, rainfall shocks might deter migration in other ways.

Friction in land markets can be potent in holding back migration. In the absence of formal titles to land, people might fear losing their land, which in turn can deter migration (de Janvry et al. 2015; Chen 2017; Gottlieb and Grobovšek 2019). Informational friction too has been found to be an important barrier to migration and could also influence the water–migration relationship. In a study about migration expectations among rural Kenyans, Baseler (2019) found that even as workers in cities had the potential to earn twice as much as their rural counterparts, rural workers substantially underestimated the magnitude of this wage gap because of poor information about wages in the destination (Lagakos 2020).

People may also actively choose to stay under certain conditions. Prevailing labor market conditions and the local economy can influence the underlying incentives not to migrate. For example, a drought might increase local demand for agricultural labor due to the elevation of on-farm risk. This increase in demand for labor could lead more people to work on farms to minimize the damages to crops (Grabrucker and Grimm 2020; Jagnani et al. 2020; Mueller, Gray, and Hopping 2020). Yet another explanation could be labor reallocation to other sectors. In the presence of large firms and sufficient rural industrialization, rural poor people may be relatively successful in offsetting water-induced agricultural income losses through a reallocation of labor to off-farm employment in the same vicinity without resorting to migration (Blakeslee, Fishman, and Srinivasan 2020).

The presence of other social safety nets, such as cash transfer programs, food aid, or access to social networks, may also break the link between droughts and migration and cause people to stay. Governments can aid regions affected by natural disasters or other extreme weather events, which could dampen the economic impact of such shocks and thus influence migration. There is some suggestive evidence that food aid can delay or reduce migration (Hammond et al. 2005; Cattaneo et al. 2019; Meze-Hausken 2000). Nontraditional drought policies such as cash transfer programs can also unintentionally augment adaptive capacity and help the poor to smooth income shocks caused by droughts, thereby eliminating the incentives to move completely (Verner and Tebaldi 2015). Access to social networks also has been found to weaken the relationship between migration and rainfall deficits (Nawrotzki et al. 2015).

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