Do socioeconomic factors influence who is most likely to relocate after environmental disasters? A case study in Indonesia

Abstract

Environmental mobility (residential moves influenced by environmental factors) is increasingly recognized as an important issue, both today and under future conditions of climate change. Those who experience climate-and weather-related disasters rarely respond as a homogenous group of migrants, yet relatively limited studies have specifically examined individual-level heterogeneities across those exposed. In this paper, we used self-reported data to investigate differences in sociodemographics (age, marital status, sex, and education) between those who relocated after environmental disruptions in Indonesia and those who did not relocate. Individuals with 12 years of education at the time of an environmental exposure were 3.93 (95% confidence interval [CI]: 1.38, 11.20) times more likely to move for environmental reasons than those with <12 years of education. Assuming education as a proxy for socioeconomic status, these findings suggest that those in the mid-range socioeconomic brackets may be most likely to migrate after environmental disruptions, while the poorest are less likely to move. This may reflect that the costs of relocation are prohibitively high for those with lower socioeconomic status. Collectively, these results add to an inconsistent body of literature on environmental mobility and indicate that further site-and context-specific research on climate-and weather-related relocation is needed.