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In the climate-vulnerable villages of Bangladesh, migration is a survival strategy for many rural families that rely on agriculture.��

When heat waves damage crops or floods inundate communities, many people choose to leave their homes to seek better opportunities in bigger cities or even outside of the country.

But in published in Population and Development Review, CU �鶹ӰԺ researchers suggested that climate change doesn’t always drive people away.��

While extreme heat and storms can increase migration, having relatives and other family ties who have already migrated actually reduced the chances that people leave the country during periods of extreme weather.��

“Migration is a really important way that families adapt and cope with environmental change, but there are a lot of big questions about who has the capacity to adapt in this way,” said Amanda Carrico, associate professor in the Department of Environmental Studies and the paper’s first author.

“There's been a lot of media coverage and speculation that climate change could cause tensions by driving migration, but we actually saw the inverse,” she said.

CU �鶹ӰԺ Today sat down with Carrico to chat about the findings and their implications for people around the world.

The research team interviewed local residents on their families' migration history. (Credit: Amanada Carrico/CU �鶹ӰԺ)��

In Bangladesh, where are people moving?

Bangladesh is still a lower-middle income country, and most people rely on agriculture as their source of income. As the nation industrializes, most people who migrate are migrating domestically to large cities like Dhaka, the capital city, and to Chittagong. The country is also seeing increasing international migration, and the most common destinations are Malaysia, Saudi Arabia, Qatar and Indonesia. By 2019, 7.8 million Bangladeshis had moved abroad.��

Most migration is driven by economics. Families often send one or more members, typically a young man, to earn income elsewhere and send remittances home.

Why focus on southwest Bangladesh?

The country’s southwest is very vulnerable to climate change. It is a coastal area, so it faces frequent storms, flooding, saltwater flowing into freshwater systems and extreme heat. Many people there depend on agriculture, making livelihoods highly sensitive to environmental stress.

How does climate change affect migration more generally?

Previous studies have shown that environmental stress can drive people to migrate, especially those whose livelihoods rely on agriculture and fishing. In Bangladesh, when extreme weather events like heatwaves and storms damage crops, families may send a member, usually a young son, to a city for other work.��

Why are social networks important for migration?

Migrating is expensive and risky. People with relatives or friends who already migrated often have access to information, housing, financial help or job opportunities.

So, we wanted to know if those social connections facilitate migration and mobility among those who are experiencing environmental stress.

A big part of understanding differential impacts of climate change is understanding differential adaptive capacity.

What did you find?

We collected data about more than 11,000 people in 2,920 households in rural Bangladesh through interviews of the household heads and their spouses. During these interviews, we recorded their families’ migration history between 1989 and 2017.��

We found that heatwaves and storms tended to increase domestic migration among men.

But the biggest surprise came from international migration. We found that households that have a lot of social ties to international migrants are less��likely to send migrants internationally during these periods of extreme heat. This is inconsistent with the prevailing narrative, which is that climate stress pushes people out. And if you already have these social ties, you should be just that much more likely to leave in theory.

What we found might be suggesting that families with relatives already working abroad may receive enough financial support to stabilize their livelihoods during difficult years. So they may delay trips that were planned.

Did the study find differences between men and women?

In rural Bangladesh, migration for work is still heavily shaped by gender norms. Men are more likely to migrate for employment, while women’s migration is often linked to marriage.

And for women who stayed behind after their husbands migrated, they tend to be better off overall. Supported by the remittances, they compared to their peers.

But in recent years, we also observed changes in these patterns. We are now seeing younger women increasingly moving for education.

Why is this finding important for those living elsewhere?

It's geopolitically significant, because there's a lot of anxiety about climate-displaced persons crossing borders.��

It's possible that climate stress could actually make it harder for people to leave.