IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/wdevel/v84y2016icp55-68.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Migration and Self-Protection Against Climate Change: A Case Study of Samburu County, Kenya

Author

Listed:
  • Ng’ang’a, Stanley Karanja
  • Bulte, Erwin H.
  • Giller, Ken E.
  • McIntire, John M.
  • Rufino, Mariana C.

Abstract

Climate change will affect the livelihoods of pastoralists in arid and semi-arid lands. Using data on agro-pastoral households from northern Kenya, we explore whether migration of household members enhances adoption of agricultural innovations that aim to provide protection against weather shocks. Specifically, we seek to test whether migration and adaptation are complementary mechanisms to protect the household against adverse shocks, or whether they are substitutes. Do remittances relax capital constraints and facilitate the uptake of adaptive measures, or do they render adaptation superfluous? Our data provide suggestive evidence that remittances from migrant household members may relax capital constraints, and that remittances are an important mechanism linking migration to adoption, enabling the uptake of new technologies that involve change in activities or high costs. Specifically, migrant households adopt more adaptive measures (promoting self-protection), and we document some support for the hypothesis that this is especially the case for high-cost adaptations such as the purchasing of drought tolerant livestock. These findings suggest that migration and local innovation are complementary rather than substitutive mechanisms of self-protection for pastoral households in the semi-arid lands of northern Kenya. Households who have at least one member who has migrated are able to overcome barriers to employ high-cost agricultural innovations–through using remittances received—thus enhancing their self-protection against climate change related shocks.

Suggested Citation

  • Ng’ang’a, Stanley Karanja & Bulte, Erwin H. & Giller, Ken E. & McIntire, John M. & Rufino, Mariana C., 2016. "Migration and Self-Protection Against Climate Change: A Case Study of Samburu County, Kenya," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 84(C), pages 55-68.
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:wdevel:v:84:y:2016:i:c:p:55-68
    DOI: 10.1016/j.worlddev.2016.04.002
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0305750X16303527
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1016/j.worlddev.2016.04.002?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Tanvir Pavel & Syed Hasan & Nafisa Halim & Pallab Mozumder, 2018. "Natural Hazards and Internal Migration: The Role of Transient versus Permanent Shocks," Working Papers 1806, Florida International University, Department of Economics.
    2. Sansi Yang & Le Yu & Ganxiao Leng & Huanguang Qiu, 2021. "Livestock farmers’ perception and adaptation to climate change: panel evidence from pastoral areas in China," Climatic Change, Springer, vol. 164(1), pages 1-24, January.
    3. Lesly Cassin & Paolo Melindi-Ghidi & Fabien Prieur, 2020. "Confronting climate change: Adaptation vs. migration strategies in Small Island Developing States," Working Papers hal-02515116, HAL.
    4. Soumyadeep Banerjee & Abid Hussain & Sabarnee Tuladhar & Arabinda Mishra, 2019. "Building capacities of women for climate change adaptation: Insights from migrant-sending households in Nepal," Climatic Change, Springer, vol. 157(3), pages 587-609, December.
    5. Annemiek Pas, 2018. "Governing Grazing and Mobility in the Samburu Lowlands, Kenya," Land, MDPI, vol. 7(2), pages 1-24, March.
    6. Yurco, Kayla, 2024. "From grazing units to milking units: The gendered nature of intra-household livestock management and food security for pastoralists in Kenya," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 174(C).
    7. Héctor Morales-Muñoz & Srijna Jha & Michelle Bonatti & Henryk Alff & Sabine Kurtenbach & Stefan Sieber, 2020. "Exploring Connections—Environmental Change, Food Security and Violence as Drivers of Migration—A Critical Review of Research," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 12(14), pages 1-27, July.
    8. Liu, Ziming & Yu, Lu, 2020. "Stay or Leave? The Role of Air Pollution in Urban Migration Choices," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 177(C).

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:eee:wdevel:v:84:y:2016:i:c:p:55-68. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Catherine Liu (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.elsevier.com/locate/worlddev .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.