Extreme Weather Events and Migration: The Case of Morocco
Introduction
The frequency of droughts has increased in Morocco over the last few decades,with negative impact on farmers and the economy as a whole (Azzam andSekkat 2005; Barakat and Handoufe 1998; Skees 2001). Most agricultural landis not irrigated, which means that affected households often have limited ways to reduce the impact of droughts on their livelihood (Skees 2001; Swearingenand Bencherifa 2000). In chapter 5 of this study, a recent national household survey for Morocco was used to document the extent to which Moroccan households, and especially those involved in agriculture, are confronted with extreme weather events such as droughts. The analysis suggested that most households working in agriculture were affected by weather shocks, often seriously.In the population as a whole, the proportion of households affected was about one fourth, simply because households not in agriculture were not likely to be affected. Many households affected declared not being able to recover from these shocks.Given the high level of vulnerability of households to weather shocks AND their limited means to cope with the shocks and adapt to climate change, one might expect that weather shocks would contribute to out-migration in the affected areas. It would make sense that some household members would leave the areas most affected by drought, and there is indeed some evidence to this effect. After a severe drought in 2007, two thirds of the illegal migrants arrested in Spain were from the farming and mining region of Khouribga (EACH-FOR2008). Another study by Hamza, El Faskaoui, and Fermin (2009) found that environmental degradation was one of the reasons leading to past or intended migration. Yet these studies have been fairly localized and based on small samples,so that it is difficult to generalize from them—for example the study byHamza, El Faskaoui and Fermin has a sample size of 30, so that it is unclear at the national level whether climate shocks are a major or relatively small factor affecting migration.The objective of this chapter is to test whether these weather shocks indeed contribute to migration, both temporary and permanent, by using a brooder sample (for a brief review of the literature which informs this chapter, see the introduction of chapter 1 by Wodon et al. (2014) and chapter 2 on the focus countries for this work by Burger et al. (2014) in this study. The analysis is base don a nationally representative household survey? the Morocco Household andYouth Survey (MHYS) implemented between December 2009 and March 2010.Much of the questionnaire of that survey focuses on issues critical to youth, such as the obstacles they encounter on the labor market and for civic participation.But the questionnaire also included data on migration as well as on various shocks affecting households and their ability to cope with these shocks. One of the shocks is that of adverse weather events (such as droughts and floods). It isthmus feasible using econometric techniques to assess whether households who affected by extreme weather events experienced higher migration rates among their members after controlling for a range of other household and individual characteristics.The chapter is organized as follows. Section two introduces the data used form the analysis. Section three provides basic statistics on the extent to which households are affected by weather and other shocks, and on the extent of both temporary and permanent migration among household members. Section four then provides the multivariate analysis of the correlates of temporary and permanent migration among household members. A brief conclusion follows.
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