Family Well-Being in the Context of Environmental Migration

Recent research suggests that climate change is affecting the rates and patterns of migration around the world in complex ways. While environmental stress sometimes compels people to migrate for their safety or to access livelihood opportunities, environmental stress can also inhibit mobility. Descriptive data from the highly vulnerable region of coastal Bangladesh offers insight into how environmental migrants may differ from other migrants. Those who migrate in disaster-affected years are on average older, shoulder more household responsibilities, and are more often engaged in high-risk agricultural livelihoods. Scholarship on climate migration stands to benefit from the perspectives and approaches pursued in the Family Studies literature and vice versa. The question of when and why households pursue migration in the face of stress has high relevance for the field of family studies, and climate migration data offers a window into family dynamics in the face of mounting climate pressure. I seek to identity points of intersection and opportunities across the two fields, as well as opportunities for future research.