Migration

Gender-Specific Out-Migration, Deforestation and Urbanization in the Ecuadorian Amazon

Citation:

Barbieri, Alisson F., and David L. Carr. 2005. “Gender-Specific Out-Migration, Deforestation and Urbanization in the Ecuadorian Amazon.” Global and Planetary Change 47: 99-110.

Authors: Alisson F. Barbieri, David L. Carr

Abstract:

The Ecuadorian Amazon, one of the richest reserves of biodiversity in the world, has faced one of the highest rates of deforestation of any Amazonian nation. Most of this forest elimination has been caused by agricultural colonization that followed the discovery of oil fields in 1967. Since the 1990s, an increasing process of urbanization has also engendered new patterns of population mobility within the Amazon, along with traditional ways by which rural settlers make their living. However, while very significant in its effects on deforestation, urbanization and regional development, population mobility within the Amazon has hardly been studied at all, as well as the distinct migration patterns between men and women. This paper uses a longitudinal dataset of 250 farm households in the Northern Ecuadorian Amazon to understand differentials between men and women migrants to urban and rural destinations and between men and women non-migrants. First, we use hazard analysis based on the Kaplan–Meier (KM) estimator to obtain the cumulative probability that an individual living in the study area in 1990 or at time t, will out-migrated at some time, t+n, before 1999. Results indicate that out-migration to other rural areas in the Amazon, especially pristine areas is considerably greater than out-migration to the growing, but still incipient, Amazonian urban areas. Furthermore, men are more likely to out-migrate to rural areas than women, while the reverse occurs for urban areas. Difference-of-means tests were employed to examine potential factors accounting for differentials between male and female out-migration to urban and rural areas. Among the key results, relative to men younger women are more likely to out-migrate to urban areas; more difficult access from farms to towns and roads constrains women’s migration; and access to new lands in the Amazon–an important cause of further deforestation–is more associated with male out-migration. Economic factors such as engagement in on-farm work, increasing resource scarcity–measured by higher population density at the farm and reduction in farm land on forest and crops–and increase in pasture land are more associated with male out-migration to rural areas. On the other hand, increasing resource scarcity, higher population density and weaker migration networks are more associated with female out-migration to urban areas. Thus, a vicious cycle is created: Pressure over land leads to deforestation in most or all farm forest areas and reduces the possibilities for further agricultural extensification (deforestation); out-migration, especially male out-migration, occurs to other rural or forest areas in the Amazon (with women being more likely to choose urban destinations); and, giving continuing population growth and pressures in the new settled areas, new pressures promote further out-migration to rural destinations and unabated deforestation.

Keywords: Ecuadorian Amazon, out-migration, gender differences, deforestation, urbanization

Topics: Agriculture, Coloniality/Post-Coloniality, Displacement & Migration, Migration, Climate Displacement, Environment, Gender Regions: Americas, South America Countries: Ecuador

Year: 2005

Challenges and Possibilities for Achieving Household Food Security in the Western Sudan Region: The Role of Female Farmers

Citation:

Ibnouf, Fatma Osman. 2011. “Challenges and Possibilities for Achieving Household Food Security in the Western Sudan Region: The Role of Female Farmers.” Food Security 3 (2): 215-31.

Author: Fatma Osman Ibnouf

Abstract:

This paper investigates the role of women in achieving household food security in the Western Region of Sudan, an area much affected by the impacts of drought and civil conflicts. The study is based on a quantitative survey and qualitative focus group discussions, supported by personal observations made during fieldwork. Additionally, the study draws upon secondary data that is publicly available. Results demonstrate that women play a major role in producing and providing food for their households in this high-risk climate and conflict area, while men are more likely to migrate seasonally and even permanently. In addition, women are responsible for food preparation, processing, and food preservation and are wholly responsible for attending to household garden plots. They therefore contribute more to household food security than men, though this contribution is not recognized in official statistics. The study findings indicate that the main problems women face as food producers and providers are a lack of access to the full package of improved production methods (improved seeds, fertilizers, modern farming methods, credit services, pesticides, appropriate technologies, and marketing facilities), in addition to gender disparities and gender-biased traditions. The impacts of natural crises and civil conflicts are gendered and therefore the responses to these crises must be gender responsive. Holistic and strategic policies and plans that take gender issues into account are thus needed in order to achieve food security.

Keywords: Sudan, women, Gender, migration, food security

Topics: Armed Conflict, Civil Wars, Displacement & Migration, Migration, Environment, Climate Change, Environmental Disasters, Gendered Power Relations, Households, Security, Food Security Regions: Africa, East Africa Countries: Sudan

Year: 2011

Gender Processes in Rural Out-Migration and Socio-economic Development in the Himalaya

Citation:

Tiwari, Prakash C., and Bhagwati Joshi. 2016. “Gender Processes in Rural Out-Migration and Socio-economic Development in the Himalaya.” Migration and Development 5 (2): 330-50.

Authors: Prakash C. Tiwari, Bhagwati Joshi

Abstract:

In the Himalaya, due to constraints of subsistence economy a large proportion of youth male population out-migrates in search of livelihood. Women are therefore considered as primary resource developers, and they make implicit contribution towards mountain economy. However, women enjoy a highly restricted ownership of natural resources and limited access to the opportunities of social and economic development, and this further leads to the feminization of poverty. Moreover, depletion of natural resources and climate change have further accelerated the trends of male out-migration which have enhanced women’s roles, and responsibilities and increased their workload rendering them more vulnerable to environmental changes. However, this study found that the increasing trends of male out-migration not only provided stability to rural economies in terms of remittances, but also marginally improved women’s access to education, development opportunities, leadership, decision-making power, natural resource management and growing market. These changes are contributing towards social, economic and political empowerment of rural women. Furthermore, women have developed critical traditional knowledge to understand, visualize and respond to environmental changes including the climate change. Hence, it is highly imperative to improve rural livelihood in rural areas, and extend the good practices of women’s mainstreaming in other areas across the Himalayan mountains.

Keywords: subsistence economy, climate change, educational, economic and political empowerment, feminization of agriculture and resource development process, rural livelihood improvement

Topics: Displacement & Migration, Migration, Climate Displacement, Economies, Poverty, Environment, Climate Change, Gender, Livelihoods Regions: Asia, South Asia

Year: 2016

Agrarian Stress and Climate Change in the Eastern Gangetic Plains: Gendered Vulnerability in a Stratified Social Formation

Citation:

Sugden, Fraser, Niki Maskey, Floriane Clement, Vidya Ramesh, Anil Philip, and Ashok Rai. 2014. “Agrarian Stress and Climate Change in the Eastern Gangetic Plains: Gendered Vulnerability in a Stratified Social Formation.” Global Environmental Change 29: 258-69. 

Authors: Fraser Sugden, Niki Maskey, Floriane Clement, Vidya Ramesh, Anil Philip, Ashok Rai

Abstract:

This paper reviews the complex impact of climate change on gender relations and associated vulnerability on the Eastern Gangetic Plains of Nepal and India. Field research has identified that gendered vulnerability to climate change is intricately connected to local and macro level political economic processes. Rather than being a single driver of change, climate is one among several stresses on agriculture, alongside a broader set of non-climatic processes. While these pressures are linked to large scale political- economic processes, the response on the ground is mediated by the local level relations of class and caste, creating stratified patterns of vulnerability. The primary form of gendered vulnerability in the context of agrarian stress emerges from male out-migration, which has affected the distribution of labour and resources. While migration occurs amongst all socio-economic groups, women from marginal farmer and tenant households are most vulnerable. While the causes of migration are only indirectly associated with climate change, migration itself is rendering women who are left behind from marginal households, more vulnerable to ecological shocks such as droughts due to the sporadic flow of income and their reduced capacity for investment in off-farm activities. It is clear that policies and initiatives to address climate change in stratified social formations such as the Eastern Gangetic Plains, will be ineffective without addressing the deeper structural intersections between class, caste and gender.

Keywords: climate change, vulnerability, Eastern Gangetic Plains, Gender, class, caste

Topics: Agriculture, Caste, Class, Displacement & Migration, Migration, Economies, Environment, Climate Change, Gender Regions: Asia, South Asia

Year: 2014

Climate Change, Gender, Decision-Making Power, and Migration into the Saiss Region of Morocco

Citation:

Najjar, Dina, Boubaker Dhehibi, Aden Aw-Hassan, and Abderrahim Bentaibi. 2017. “Climate Change, Gender, Decision-Making Power, and Migration into the Saiss Region of Morocco.” Working Paper 1102, The Economic Research Forum (ERF), Giza.

Authors: Dina Najjar, Boubaker Dhehibi, Aden Aw-Hassan, Abderrahim Bentaibi

Abstract:

Studies on migration in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region have so far focused on migration to urban areas (local cities and European countries). Little research has explored internal migration into rural areas. Yet in Morocco rural-rural migration is an important strategy for many who are escaping climate variability and unemployment in their hometowns to take advantage of labor opportunities in thriving agricultural enterprises. Gender remains largely missing from migration research in Morocco especially for migrant women. Gender differences are important to account for as men and women have diverse motives, strategies and experiences with migration, and thus require different interventions. In light of gender differences and climate-induced migration and investments in irrigation, this research follows up on the ground to understand the experiences of men and women laborer as the migration continues in three rural areas in the Saiss region (Morocco). These are chosen based on differences in socio-economic, gender norms, and biophysical dynamics to capture as diverse experiences as possible with labor work and migration as possible. These areas also represent both sending and receiving communities. Data was collected through a survey administered to 400 laborers (179 women and 221 men) employed in the intensified agricultural sector of Saiss in Morocco. Using gender analysis, logistic regression models framework and political ecology approach, our findings emphasize that men should be sensitized in their attainment of tertiary education on gender equality and the importance soliciting women’s participation in decisionmaking, particularly with regards to assets (house). For the economic advancement of women, there should be a sustained focus on their ownership and control over unalienable assets (such as housing). The same recommendation applies to the youth. Finally, we found that migrants were less likely to control houses that they owned probably due to a general lack of title deeds. We recommend formalizing their ownership of housing in the settlement areas.

Keywords: gender analysis, decision-making, migration, rural livelihoods, climate change, logistic regression, Morocco

Topics: Agriculture, Displacement & Migration, Migration, Climate Displacement, Environment, Climate Change, Gender, Gender Analysis, Livelihoods Regions: Africa, MENA Countries: Morocco

Year: 2017

Climate Change and Women’s Place-Based Vulnerabilities – A Case Study from Pakistani Highlands

Citation:

Nizami, Arjumand, and Jawad Ali. 2017. "Climate Change and Women’s Place-Based Vulnerabilities – A Case Study from Pakistani Highlands." Climate and Development 9 (7): 662-70.

Authors: Arjumand Nizami, Jawad Ali

Abstract:

Changes in temperature and hydro-meteorological patterns due to climate change are believed to be impacting farming communities in different ways. From a gender neutral perspective, climate change implications affect members of communities alike. From a gender perspective however, impacts of change vary from place to place, household to household and for individual members of the household due to a multiplicity of factors including expectation of individual members of a household to take additional responsibilities in difficult times. Taking empirical evidence from the hazard affected region of Chitral Pakistan, we argue that climate change vulnerabilities are contextually determined, are place based and impact individual members of households differently. As an unavoidable coping strategy, the affected communities are compelled to send male members away from home in search of alternate sources of livelihoods. This compels women to take additional responsibilities at farm household and the community levels. These responsibilities give birth to new vulnerabilities for women. Female members are forced to contribute to communal tasks traditionally performed by male member. Therefore, differentiated analysis of climate change impacts, based on gender roles and responsibilities, is crucial to understand impacts of climate change on different segments of the society even individual members of the same households.

Keywords: climate change, migration, women, vulnerability, Pakistan

Topics: Displacement & Migration, Migration, Environment, Climate Change, Gender, Gender Roles, Livelihoods Regions: Asia, South Asia Countries: Pakistan

Year: 2017

Gender, Environment and Migration in Bangladesh

Citation:

Evertsen, Kathinka Fossum, and Kees van der Geest. 2019. "Gender, Environment and Migration in Bangladesh." Climate and Development, April, 1-11. https://doi.org/10.1080/17565529.2019.1596059.

Authors: Kathinka Fossum Evertsen, Kees van der Geest

Abstract:

This article addresses how gender norms impact the process of migration, and what this means for the use of migration as an adaptation strategy to cope with environmental stressors. Data was collected through qualitative fieldwork, taking the form of semi-structured and open-ended interviews and focus group discussions from a Dhaka slum and three villages in Southern Bangladesh's Bhola district. Our data revealed that women migrate when environmental stress threatens livelihoods and leave male household members unable to earn enough income for their families. Employing an analytical framework that focuses on the perceptions of individuals, this article shows how gender norms create social costs for women who migrate. Women thus have ambivalent feelings about migration. On the one hand, they do not wish to migrate, taking on a double work load, forsaking their purdah, and facing the stigma that follows. On the other hand, women see migration as a means to help their families, and live a better life. While social costs negatively affect the utilization and efficiency of female migration as an adaptation strategy to environmental stressors, it becomes clear that female migration is imperative to sustain livelihoods within the Bhola community.

Keywords: Gender, environment, climate change, migration, adaptation

Topics: Displacement & Migration, Migration, Climate Displacement, Environment, Climate Change, Gender, Gender Roles, Livelihoods Regions: Asia, South Asia Countries: Bangladesh

Year: 2019

Gendering Resilience: Myths and Stereotypes in the Discourse on Climate-Induced Migration

Citation:

Rothe, Delf. 2017. "Gendering Resilience: Myths and Stereotypes in the Discourse on Climate-Induced Migration." Global Policy 8 (1): 40-7.

Author: Delf Rothe

Abstract:

The research article critically investigates recent European policy proposals that promote migration as an adaptation strategy to increase the resilience of communities vulnerable to the environmental crisis. Such proposals have been welcomed for breaking with alarmist discourses that framed climate-induced migration as a threat to national or international security. The present article seeks to contribute to this ongoing debate by bringing in a fresh perspective that has so far been neglected: the perspective of gender. Drawing on a poststructuralist perspective on gender the article reveals that policy debates on climate-induced migration take place within highly gendered discourses. Applying this perspective to recent policy reports on climate change, migration and resilience, the article helps to paint a more nuanced picture of the highly criticized notion of resilience. The analysis shows that, on the one hand, resilience thinking helped overcoming a masculinized discourse of security as control. On the other hand, it reproduces a series of ‘gender myths’ about the role of women in the so-called Global South.

Topics: Displacement & Migration, Climate Displacement, Migration, Environment, Climate Change, Environmental Disasters, Gender, Gendered Discourses

Year: 2017

Gender, Mobilities and Transformation in Loppa, a Rural Municipality of Norway’s High North

Citation:

Walsh, Deatra, and Siri Gerrard. 2018. “Gender, Mobilities and Transformation in Loppa, a Rural Municipality of Norway’s High North.” Gender, Place & Culture 25 (8): 1154–74.

Authors: Deatra Walsh, Siri Gerrard

Abstract:

This article demonstrates the persistence of rural and peripheral coastal places in spite of widespread economic change through the lens of gendered mobilities. We focus on Loppa, a mountainous, ferry-dependent and sparsely populated municipality in the County of Finnmark in Norway’s High North. The fishery in Loppa, while the main source of employment for men, has been in decline. Conversely, employment in health, social services and other professional services has remained steady and, in some cases, increased. Women comprise the highest proportion of workers in these sectors. Using quantitative and qualitative data, we show that in and out-migration, as well as in and out-commuting all feature prominently in Loppa’s mobility picture over time. Higher proportions of men out-migrate and out-commute, suggesting that as changes in the fishery have occurred, men are the first to adjust through geographical mobilities. Although women are working in arguably more stable public sector employment, they too must engage in mobilities. We argue that in the absence of the prominent pattern of exodus of men and women over time, the varied mobilities in to and out of Loppa signal its transformation rather than decline with a future not yet known. We demonstrate that transformation is supported by mobilities as well as the the moorings associated with place.

Keywords: gender, mobilities, multi-methods, Norway's High North, restructuring

Topics: Displacement & Migration, Migration, Economies, Gender Analysis, Globalization, Livelihoods Regions: Europe, Nordic states, Northern Europe Countries: Norway

Year: 2018

Gendered Environmental Security in IDP and Refugee Camps

Citation:

Rosenow-Williams, Kerstin, and Katharina Behmer. 2015. “Gendered Environmental Security in IDP and Refugee Camps.” Peace Review: A Journal of Social Justice 27: 188–95.

Authors: Kerstin Rosenow-Williams, Katharina Behmer

Annotation:

Summary:
"The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) and its Executive Committee have long stressed that situations of flight and displacement affect men and women differently and that effective programming must recognize these differences. In the mid-1980s UNHCR, and various other humanitarian actors, began incorporating a gender perspective into their humanitarian activities. Since then a large variety of handbooks, guidelines, and toolkits have been developed. The 2008 UNHCR Handbook for the Protection of Women and Girls, for example, notes that gender mainstreaming has been adopted as a United Nations (UN)–wide policy, recognizing that centralizing the differing needs of women and men into the design of programs, policies, and operations is necessary to fundamentally improve the position of gender equality.
 
"To monitor and advance this policy approach, this essay advocates the use of a gendered human security perspective as an analytical tool to disentangle the gendered dimensions of security for individuals and groups during displacement. It places a special focus on the interrelation between gender categories, their social construction, and the intersectionality of individual characteristics. An intersectional focus on gender-specific dimensions of displacement means taking into account other factors that can cause vulnerability and insecurities (such as age, sexuality, race, religion, class, and ethnicity), thus, also acknowledging the different security situations of individuals within the same gender group. Fusing the concepts of gender mainstreaming and human security proves to be a useful approach to conceptualize and address the multilayered and interrelated security needs of men, women, boys, and girls while providing evidence of the importance of making both sexes the key referents for human security" (Rosenow-Williams and Behmer 2015, 188). 

Topics: Age, Clan, Displacement & Migration, Migration, Refugees, Ethnicity, Gender, Gender Mainstreaming, International Organizations, Race, Religion, Security, Human Security, Sexuality

Year: 2015

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