| Peer-Reviewed

Climate Induced Migration and Social Mobility Among Migrants: Evidence from the Southwest Coastal Region of Bangladesh

Received: 20 May 2019     Accepted: 24 June 2019     Published: 10 July 2019
Views:       Downloads:
Abstract

Climate induced natural disasters is a common phenomenon of the southwest coastal region in Bangladesh, where rural-urban migration has been considered as an adaptation strategy to survive from the adverse situation of natural disasters. For this type of internal migration, the migrants face multiple hazards, such as occupational change in destination, poverty, gender discrimination, risk of violence, social inequality, social disharmony and conflict with the host community etc. which influence the individual’s social mobility that may be upward or downward. This qualitative research explores the social mobility of the climate migrants to assess the migrants’ socioeconomic as well as occupational changes. For this study, we have collected the data from the cyclone Sidr and cyclone Aila affected migrants who were migrated internally from the disaster-prone southwest coastal region to the neighboring divisional city Khulna of Bangladesh. After analyzing the primary data, the results have been shown that most of the climate migrants were changed their occupations due to the failure of deriving a secure income in destination places. According to the present socio-demographic profiles and the social status of the climate migrants, poor housing conditions, food insecurity, gender discrimination and structural inequalities in access to properties and control over resources, lack of access to urban culture and identity crisis related with social prestige are created the social disharmony in the society. Most of the rural middle class migrants are shifted in lower class in the context of urban life which indicate downward social mobility caused by climate induced unsuccessful migration.

Published in Social Sciences (Volume 8, Issue 4)
DOI 10.11648/j.ss.20190804.12
Page(s) 147-159
Creative Commons

This is an Open Access article, distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, provided the original work is properly cited.

Copyright

Copyright © The Author(s), 2019. Published by Science Publishing Group

Keywords

Climate Change, Natural Disaster, Migration, Social Mobility, Bangladesh

References
[1] Riguad, K. K., Sherbinin, A. de., Jones, B., Bergmann, J., Clement, V., Ober, K., Schewe, J., Adamo, S., McCusker, B., Heuser, S. and Midgley, A. (2018). Groundswell: Preparing for Internal Climate Migration. Washington, DC: The World Bank.
[2] Germanwatch. Global Climate Risk Index 2018. Who suffers Most from Extreme Weather Events? Weather related loss events in 2016 and 1997 to 2016. Harmeling, Sven and Eckstein, David. Briefing paper. Bonn, Germanwatch, 2017. www.germanwatch.org/en/cri.
[3] IPCC. Climate Change 2014: Impact, Adaptation, and Vulnerability. Contribution of Working Group II to the Fifth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), 2014.
[4] Mallick, B. and Vogt, J. (2012). Cyclone, Coastal Society and Migration. International Development Planning Review, 34, 217-240.
[5] EM-DAT. Percentage of People Affected by Disaster in Bangladesh from 1981 to 2016. International Database for Disasters, Louvain, Université Catholique de Louvain, (2016).
[6] BBS. Bangladesh-population-and-housing-census-2011, Bangladesh, Bureau of Statistics (BBS), 2011.
[7] World Bank. The World Bank Annual Report 2012. Washington, DC, 2012.
[8] Akhter, M. N., Chakraborty, T. K., Ghosh, G. C., Ghosh, P., and Jahan, S. (2012). Migration Due to Climate Change from the South-West Coastal Region of Bangladesh: A Case Study on Shymnagor Upazilla, Satkhira District. American Journal of Environmental Protection, 5 (6), 145-151.
[9] IOM-2009. Migration, Environment and Climate Change: Assessing the Evidence. International Organization for Migration (IOM), Geneva, Switzerland, 2009.
[10] IOM-2008. Migration and Climate Change. Prepared for IOM by Oli Brown. IOM Migration Research Series. Research paper no. 31. International Organization for Migration. Geneva, 2008.
[11] IDMC. Displacement due to natural hazard-induced disasters Global estimates for 2009 and 2010 Internal Displacement Monitoring Center (IDMC), June 2011.
[12] Environmental Justice Foundation. Country Master, United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs: Population Division, 2017.
[13] Stojanov, R., Kelman, I., Ullah, A. K. M. A., Duzi, B., Prochazka, D. and Blahutova, K. K. (2016). Local Expert Perceptions of Migration as a Climate Change Adaptation in Bangladesh. Sustainability, 8, 1223-1237.
[14] Chanda, S. K. (2010). Effect of Cyclone AILA: Migration Tendency of the Resident. Journal of Socioeconomic Research & Development, 7 (6), 975-980.
[15] Black, R., Kniveton, D. and Schmidt-Verkerk, K. (2011). Migration and Climate Change: Towards an Integrated Assessment of Sensitivity. Environment and Planning A, 43, 431-450.
[16] Mallick, B., Rahaman, K. R. and Vogt, J. (2011). Coastal Livelihood and Physical Infrastructure in Bangladesh after Cyclone AILA. Migration and Adaptation Strategies for Global Change, 16, 629-648.
[17] Sultana, Z., and Mallick, B. (2015), Adaptation Strategies after Cyclone in Southwest Coastal Bangladesh–Pro Poor Policy Choices. American Journal of Rural Development, 3 (2), 24-33.
[18] Rahman, M. A., Hossain, M. L., Foysal, M. A. and Akter, A. (2014). Impact of Climate Change on Food Security in South-West Coastal Region of Bangladesh. American Journal of Experimental Agriculture, 4 (12), 1916-1934.
[19] Tacoli, C. (2009). Crisis or adaptation? Migration and climate change in a context of high mobility. Environment and Urbanization, 21 (2), 513-525.
[20] Ahsan, R. (2014). Climate Induced Migration: Lessons from Bangladesh. International Journal of Climate Change: Impact and Responses, 5, 1-14.
[21] Ahmed, B., Kelman, I., Fehr, H. K. and Saha, M. (2016). Community Resilience to Cyclone Disasters in Coastal Bangladesh. Sustainability, 8, 805-933.
[22] Mallick, B., Ahmed, B., and Vogt, J. (2017). Living with the Risks of Cyclone Disasters in the South-Western Coastal Region of Bangladesh. Environments, 4 (1), 13-29.
[23] Schaefer, R. T. Sociology Matters (5th ed.). New York, NY: McGraw-Hill van Laar, 2014.
[24] Mallick, B. (2014). Cyclone-induced Migration in Southwest Coastal Bangladesh. Disasters, 38, 654-671.
[25] Neupane, K. W., Rubinyi, L., Sivappha, T. and Wang, Y. (2016). Climate Migrants and Urban Adaptation in India and China Prepared for University of Notre Dame Global Adaptation Index (ND-GAIN) By Workshop in International Public Affairs Spring 2016.
[26] Bhatta, G. D. and Aggarwal, P. K. (2016). Coping with weather adversity and adaptation to climatic variability: a cross-country study of small holder farmers in South Asia. Climate and Development, 8 (2), 145-157.
[27] Gautam, Y. (2017). Seasonal Migration and Livelihood Resilience in the Face of Climate Change in Nepal. Mountain Research and Development 2017, 37 (4), 436-445.
[28] Saeed, F., Salik, K. M. and Ishfaq, S. (2016). Climate Induced Rural-to Urban Migration in Pakistan. ODI Working Paper, 2016. http://prise.odi.org/wpcontent /uploads/2016/01/LowRes-Climate-induced-rural-to-urban-migration-in-Pakistan.pdf.
[29] Eisenack, K. Archetypes of adaptation to climate change. In Human/Nature Interactions in the Anthropocene: Potentials of Social-Ecological Systems Analysis; Glaser, M., Krause, G., Ratter, B., Welp, M., Eds.; Ökom Verlag: Munich, Germany, 2009.
[30] Islam, M. D. M., Sallu, S., Hubacek, K. and Paavola, J. (2014). Migrating to tackle climate variability and change? Insights from coastal fishing communities in Bangladesh. Climate Change, 124, 733–746.
[31] Government of India. The Economic Survey 2016-2017. https://www.thehinducentre.com/multimedia/archive/03193/Economic_Survey_20_3193543a.pdf.
[32] Jha, C. K., Gupta, V., Chattopadhyay, U. and Sreeraman, B. A. (2018). Migration as adaptation strategy to cope with climate change: A study of farmers’ migration in rural India. International Journal of Climate Change Strategies and Management, 10 (1), 121-141.
[33] Bhagat R. B. (2014). Climate Change Vulnerability and Migration in India: Overlapping of Hot Spots. National Workshop on Migration and Global Environmental Change in India, March 2014.
[34] Ministry of Environment and Forests (MoEF). Bangladesh Climate Change Strategy and Action Plan (BCCSAP) 2009; Ministry of Environment and Forests, Government of the People’s Republic of Bangladesh: Dhaka, Bangladesh, 2009.
[35] CCC-2009. Characterizing Country Settings: Development of a Base Document in the Backdrop of Climate Change Impacts, Climate Change Cell (CCC), DoE, MoEF, Component 4b, CDMP, MoFDM. GoB, 2009.
[36] Government of the People’s Republic of Bangladesh, Ministry of Disaster Management and Relief (National Plan for Disaster Management 2016-2020).
[37] Ijaz, A. (2017). Climate change and Migration in Pakistan. https://thediplomat.com/2017/08/climate change and migration -in-Pakistan/.
[38] Sams, I. S. (2019). Impacts of Climate Change Induced Migration on Gender: A Qualitative Study from the Southwest Coastal Region of Bangladesh. International Journal of Social Science Studies, 7 (4), 57-68.
Cite This Article
  • APA Style

    Ishita Shahid Sams. (2019). Climate Induced Migration and Social Mobility Among Migrants: Evidence from the Southwest Coastal Region of Bangladesh. Social Sciences, 8(4), 147-159. https://doi.org/10.11648/j.ss.20190804.12

    Copy | Download

    ACS Style

    Ishita Shahid Sams. Climate Induced Migration and Social Mobility Among Migrants: Evidence from the Southwest Coastal Region of Bangladesh. Soc. Sci. 2019, 8(4), 147-159. doi: 10.11648/j.ss.20190804.12

    Copy | Download

    AMA Style

    Ishita Shahid Sams. Climate Induced Migration and Social Mobility Among Migrants: Evidence from the Southwest Coastal Region of Bangladesh. Soc Sci. 2019;8(4):147-159. doi: 10.11648/j.ss.20190804.12

    Copy | Download

  • @article{10.11648/j.ss.20190804.12,
      author = {Ishita Shahid Sams},
      title = {Climate Induced Migration and Social Mobility Among Migrants: Evidence from the Southwest Coastal Region of Bangladesh},
      journal = {Social Sciences},
      volume = {8},
      number = {4},
      pages = {147-159},
      doi = {10.11648/j.ss.20190804.12},
      url = {https://doi.org/10.11648/j.ss.20190804.12},
      eprint = {https://article.sciencepublishinggroup.com/pdf/10.11648.j.ss.20190804.12},
      abstract = {Climate induced natural disasters is a common phenomenon of the southwest coastal region in Bangladesh, where rural-urban migration has been considered as an adaptation strategy to survive from the adverse situation of natural disasters. For this type of internal migration, the migrants face multiple hazards, such as occupational change in destination, poverty, gender discrimination, risk of violence, social inequality, social disharmony and conflict with the host community etc. which influence the individual’s social mobility that may be upward or downward. This qualitative research explores the social mobility of the climate migrants to assess the migrants’ socioeconomic as well as occupational changes. For this study, we have collected the data from the cyclone Sidr and cyclone Aila affected migrants who were migrated internally from the disaster-prone southwest coastal region to the neighboring divisional city Khulna of Bangladesh. After analyzing the primary data, the results have been shown that most of the climate migrants were changed their occupations due to the failure of deriving a secure income in destination places. According to the present socio-demographic profiles and the social status of the climate migrants, poor housing conditions, food insecurity, gender discrimination and structural inequalities in access to properties and control over resources, lack of access to urban culture and identity crisis related with social prestige are created the social disharmony in the society. Most of the rural middle class migrants are shifted in lower class in the context of urban life which indicate downward social mobility caused by climate induced unsuccessful migration.},
     year = {2019}
    }
    

    Copy | Download

  • TY  - JOUR
    T1  - Climate Induced Migration and Social Mobility Among Migrants: Evidence from the Southwest Coastal Region of Bangladesh
    AU  - Ishita Shahid Sams
    Y1  - 2019/07/10
    PY  - 2019
    N1  - https://doi.org/10.11648/j.ss.20190804.12
    DO  - 10.11648/j.ss.20190804.12
    T2  - Social Sciences
    JF  - Social Sciences
    JO  - Social Sciences
    SP  - 147
    EP  - 159
    PB  - Science Publishing Group
    SN  - 2326-988X
    UR  - https://doi.org/10.11648/j.ss.20190804.12
    AB  - Climate induced natural disasters is a common phenomenon of the southwest coastal region in Bangladesh, where rural-urban migration has been considered as an adaptation strategy to survive from the adverse situation of natural disasters. For this type of internal migration, the migrants face multiple hazards, such as occupational change in destination, poverty, gender discrimination, risk of violence, social inequality, social disharmony and conflict with the host community etc. which influence the individual’s social mobility that may be upward or downward. This qualitative research explores the social mobility of the climate migrants to assess the migrants’ socioeconomic as well as occupational changes. For this study, we have collected the data from the cyclone Sidr and cyclone Aila affected migrants who were migrated internally from the disaster-prone southwest coastal region to the neighboring divisional city Khulna of Bangladesh. After analyzing the primary data, the results have been shown that most of the climate migrants were changed their occupations due to the failure of deriving a secure income in destination places. According to the present socio-demographic profiles and the social status of the climate migrants, poor housing conditions, food insecurity, gender discrimination and structural inequalities in access to properties and control over resources, lack of access to urban culture and identity crisis related with social prestige are created the social disharmony in the society. Most of the rural middle class migrants are shifted in lower class in the context of urban life which indicate downward social mobility caused by climate induced unsuccessful migration.
    VL  - 8
    IS  - 4
    ER  - 

    Copy | Download

Author Information
  • Institute of Population Research, Peking University, Beijing, China

  • Sections