Environmental migration? A systematic review and meta-analysis of the literature

Abstract

This article provides a comprehensive quantitative overview of the literature on the relationship between environmental changes and human migration. It begins with a systematic approach to bibliographic research and offers a bibliometric analysis of the empirical contributions. Specifically, we map the literature and conduct systematic research using main bibliographic databases, reviews, and bibliometric analysis of all resulting papers. By constructing a citation-based network, we identify four separate clusters of papers grouped according to certain characteristics of the analysis and resulting outcomes. Finally, we apply a meta-analysis to a sample of 96 published and unpublished studies between 2003 and 2020, providing 3904 point estimates of the effect of slow-onset events and 2065 point estimates of the effect of fast-onset events. Overall, the meta-analytic average effect on migration is small for both slow- and rapid-onset events; however, it is positive and significant. Accounting for the clustering of the literature, which highlights how specific common features of the collected studies influence the magnitude of the estimated effect, reveals a significant heterogeneity among the four clusters of papers. This heterogeneity gives rise to new evidence on the formation of club-like convergence of literature outcomes.