Population and Environment最新文献

The 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami was an extremely destructive event in Aceh, Indonesia, killing over 160,000 people and destroying infrastructure, homes, and livelihoods over miles of coastline. In its immediate aftermath, affected populations faced a daunting array of challenges. At the population level, questions of how the disaster affected children’s and parents’ aspirations for education and whether it permanently disrupted schooling progression are critical in understanding how shocks affect human capital in the short and long term. We use longitudinal data from the Study of the Tsunami Aftermath and Recovery (STAR) to examine how disaster exposure affects educational aspirations and eventual attainment. We find that damage to one’s community depresses aspirations in the short term but that this weakens with time. With respect to educational attainment 15 years after the event, children’s aspirations, parents’ education, and family socioeconomic status are more important determinants of whether children complete high school and go on to tertiary schooling than is disaster exposure. While these results likely reflect, at least in part, the successful post-tsunami reconstruction program, they also establish enormous resilience among survivors who bore the brunt of the tsunami.

As the impacts of climate change intensify globally, scholars and policymakers are increasingly interested in determining the factors that lead to the success or failure of climate adaptation strategies. This paper investigates the well-being outcomes of ex-pastoralists in northern Kenya who have migrated to towns in response to severe droughts. Focusing on Marsabit Town, the study employs a comparative design with primary survey data to analyze the well-being outcomes resulting from migration as an adaptation strategy. We contrast two heterogeneous groups of former pastoralists: a “settled group” that was already residing in Marsabit Town before ending their pastoral activities and a “migrant group” that relocated to Marsabit Town at the time of abandoning pastoralism. Our analysis reveals significant differences in well-being outcomes between these groups, with the migrant group often experiencing deterioration in their well-being levels. Key predictors of poorer well-being outcomes include the loss of all livestock, informal housing, and failure to transition into agricultural work, which often results in dependence on casual labor. Additionally, many migrants continue to experience poor subjective well-being—referring to their personal satisfaction with the quality of life—years after their livelihood transition. These insights offer a nuanced understanding of the well-being outcomes of migration-as-adaptation among heterogeneous groups of ex-pastoralists and underscore the need for customized livelihood support strategies for the most at-risk populations.

Japan is a leading exemplar of rapidly aging countries, holding very low fertility rate. Under such circumstances, the present paper examines two important aspects of residential energy consumption patterns of Japan up to the year 2040: (i) presenting two future scenarios of residential energy consumption and (ii) reexamining the effectiveness of traditional strategy to reduce energy consumption mainly through energy efficiency improvement. Before presenting the two main topics of the paper, three important factors are discussed: (i) the population aging effect; (ii) the generation gap in energy use patterns; and (iii) the decline in family size. These factors influence the relationship between the aging population and residential energy consumption. Then, a brief explanation is given for survey data sources, six household types in 11 regions of Japan, and four types of energy carriers. The first scenario assumes that residential energy consumption pattern of each household type remains unchanged from the current situation and that the population projection holds true. The total residential energy consumption will decrease by only 6% between 2020 and 2040. Yet, per capita residential energy consumption will increase despite the fact that the population size will decrease by 10.6%. The second scenario assumes that slightly higher energy efficiency improvements than in the past 15 years will continue to reduce energy consumption from 2020 to 2040. The simulation result of this optimistic scenario also suggests that conventional energy conservation strategies alone are far from sufficient to reduce residential energy consumption per capita. Thus, an alternative strategy to overcome the spell of Jevons’ paradox is urgently required. Frugality combined with lifestyle and behavior change should be seriously attempted to achieve sustainable future for societies including aging countries like Japan.

Tropical storms are among the most devastating natural disasters in the USA. Climate change is projected to make them even more destructive, and the number of people and properties at risk has steadily increased over the past several decades. Migration is often seen by scholars as an adaptation strategy to reduce exposure to future natural disasters. However, studies of migration after tropical storms have led to inconsistent results and have not analyzed post-storm migration from the viewpoint of exposure to future events. This paper adopts an innovative approach to estimate “excess migration” associated with tropical storms using Bayesian hierarchical models, and decomposes migration by risk of exposure to natural disasters of the origin and destination to understand whether migrants move to safer areas or rather riskier ones. Findings indicate that excess migration after tropical storms is rare and generally fails to reduce the number of people at risk of experiencing future natural disasters. Only the most destructive tropical storms are associated with significant excess migration. Finally, findings further suggest that neither the amount of post-disaster assistance nor the socio-demographic characteristics of the affected counties are strongly associated with excess migration.

Abstract

Using data from 32 European countries for nearly 244 million live births between 1969 and 2021, this paper examines the effects of temperatures on birth rates. The results show that exposure to hot days slightly reduces birth rates five to eight months later, while much stronger negative effects are observed nine to ten months after exposure to hot temperatures. Thereafter, a partial recovery is observed, with slightly increased birth rates. This study also shows that the effect of high-humidity hot days is much stronger than that of hot days with low humidity. Besides, the effect of heatwave days has been found to be more severe than that of hot days that are not preceded by other hot days. This study finds that some adaptation to heat might be expected only in the long run.

Researchers have long hypothesized linkages between climate change, food security, and migration in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs). One such hypothesis is the “agricultural pathway,” which postulates that negative climate change impacts on food production harm livelihoods, which triggers rural out-migration, internally or abroad. Migration is thus an adaptation to cope with the impacts of climate change and bolster livelihoods. Recent evidence suggests that the agriculture pathway is a plausible mechanism to explain climate-related migration. But direct causal connections from climate impacts on food production to livelihood loss to rural out-migration have yet to be fully established. To guide future research on the climate-food-migration nexus, we present a conceptual framework that outlines the components and linkages underpinning the agricultural pathway in LMICs. We build on established environmental-migration conceptual frameworks that have informed empirical research and deepened our understanding of complex human-environmental systems. First, we provide an overview of the conceptual framework and its connection to the agricultural pathway hypothesis in the climate mobility literature. We then outline the primary components and linkages of the conceptual framework as they pertain to LMIC contexts, highlighting current research gaps and challenges relating to the agricultural pathway. Last, we discuss possible future research directions for the climate-food-migration nexus. By highlighting the complex, multiscale, interconnected linkages that underpin the agricultural pathway, our framework unpacks the multiple causal connections that currently lie hidden in the agricultural pathway hypothesis.

Extreme temperature affects children’s health, cognitive abilities, and behavior with implications for human capital accumulation. For example, several studies documented both heat and cold to decrease cognitive abilities and being consequential for test scores. An alternative, less explored pathway, by which temperature is consequential for educational achievement, is absenteeism. In this study, we explore how heat affects school attendance leveraging administrative data on more than 22,000 schools in England from the school years 2011/2012 to 2018/2019. Using a fixed-effects approach largely used in the literature, we exploit the variations in temperature by school year to estimate the effect of heat and cold days on absences. The results expose hot days to increase absences. Inquiring specific types of absences, we observe hot days to increase illness-related absences and authorized holidays. Conversely, we do not find any substantive impact of cold exposure, except for illness-related absences in energy-poor neighborhoods. In conclusion, we provide additional evidence on the impact of temperature on children and propose an alternative pathway through which societal challenges associated with climate change and energy poverty could affect human capital accumulation.

Disruptive events and calamities can have major consequences for households in the predominantly agrarian communities of Eastern Africa. Here, we analyze the impacts of environmental and non-environmental shocks on migration in Tanzania using panel models and longitudinal data from the Tanzania National Panel Survey between 2008 and 2013. Shocks are defined as events that lead to losses in income, assets, or both. We find shocks resulting from changes in environmental conditions to be positively related to migration over time with more recent shocks exerting the strongest impact. According to our estimates, the probability of having a household member absent increases by 0.81% with each additional environmental shock encountered in the past 12 months. Different types of shocks have differential effects on migration with the strongest effects being observed for shocks with an immediate impact on household livelihoods, including through livestock losses and crop damage. Households in the sample are differently affected with rural, agriculturally dependent, and poor households without alternative income sources showing the strongest changes in their migration behavior in response to shocks. Our study adds important insights into the relationship between disruptive events and migration in Eastern Africa considering a broad time window and the compounding influence of different shock types. Our findings have a range of policy implications highlighting the need for a comprehensive perspective on household responses in times of distress that considers the interplay of different shock types as well as the role of context in shaping mobility patterns.

Extreme climate events are infrequently considered for older individuals’ health and wellbeing in low and middle income countries. The world’s first and fourth largest urban populations exposed to extreme coastal flooding are in India (Mumbai and Kolkata). These and the next largest of India’s coastal cities, Chennai and Surat, each experienced an extreme flood event in the years 2005-2007 that was either unprecedented in recorded meteorological history (Mumbai and Chennai) or whose magnitude exceeded any in the last 30 and 40 years (Kolkata and Surat). Panel data collected before these events (2004-2005), and collected again approximately seven years later (2011-2012), are used for individuals aged 50 and over. Acquisition of any disability condition between 2004-2005 and 2011-2012 in these four large coastal cities is compared to all India’s urban areas, and to India’s five inland cities (Delhi, Bangalore, Hyderabad, Ahmedabad, and Pune) whose population sizes were between those of the four exposed coastal cities of the study. Residing in a coastal city that experienced an extreme flood event was associated with a 66% higher odds of acquiring disability (OR 1.66; 95% CI:1.21, 2.27) relative to residing in equivalent-sized inland city. Being older, female, unmarried, in a single-generation household, and having a chronic morbidity condition had positive associations with disability acquisition, but only older age had a magnitude of association exceeding that for living in a coastal city that experienced an extreme flood event.

The Household Life Cycle framework relates family demographic processes to land use-cover change, but also revealed limitations. We propose several modifications, featuring a focus on extended families instead of single households, to broaden the applicability to land use systems. In the process, we pay particular attention to temporal dynamics and the spatial distribution of families concerning demographic processes, going beyond fertility to focus on population distribution. To evaluate the extended family model’s explanatory value, we apply it to the Transamazon Highway region in Brazil. The analysis includes 330 families, which are often multi-generational and multi-sited, based on data from 402 lots (1997/8–2005). We present models for forest, secondary succession, annual crops, perennials and pasture. Explanatory variables feature nine demographic factors with five others controlling for exogenous forces. The findings show strong effects for family dynamics and spatial distribution variables in many equations. Time on lot (cohort effect), the complexity of family structure (age effect) and social integration into urban fabric (spatial effect) are demographic processes that deserve further attention in land use studies.