The use of survey data to study migration–environment relationships in developing countries: alternative approaches to data collection

Population and Environment volume 34, pages 113–141 (2012)Cite this article

Abstract

Growing interest in the environmental aspects of migration is not matched by research on their interrelationships, due partly to the lack of adequate data sets on the two together. Focusing on the microlevel, we describe the data required to effectively investigate these interrelationships. Data sources are discussed, including information that should be collected, focusing on household surveys and remote sensing. The main section of the paper describes three alternative approaches to data collection: (a) using existing population and environmental data from different sources, illustrated by Burkina Faso; (b) adding questions to a survey developed for another purpose, illustrated for Guatemala using a DHS survey; and (c) designing a new survey specifically to collect both migration and environmental data to investigate interrelationships, illustrated by Ecuador. Methods used and summary findings are described, followed by a discussion of their advantages and limitations. We conclude with recommendations as to effective use of each approach as research on migration–environment linkages moves forward.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    Global concerns are generally excluded here as beyond this paper’s scope and also due to requiring supra-national data, different methodologies and preferably coordinated global policies.

  2. 2.

    Social scientists of various persuasions have debated and invented many definitions of “migrant,” as exemplified in a stimulating discussion in Standing (1984), “A Typology of Migrants.” See also definitions in UN documents (UN 1998, p. 10), and demography textbooks: e.g., Siegel and Swanson (2004: 453) define migration as “a change of residence between clearly defined geographic units …or between specifically designated political or statistical areas or …type-of-residence areas (e.g., rural to urban movement).”

  3. 3.

    While decisions to migrate are often viewed as made by households in developing countries (e.g., De Jong and Gardner 1981, and many subsequent studies), individual-level factors are often found more important (e.g., Laurian et al. 1998).

  4. 4.

    For example, Liu et al. (2003) found that the promotion of tourism in the Oolong Panda Reserve in Szechuan province of China led to an influx of not only tourists but Chinese to cater to them, threatening the Reserve.

  5. 5.

    AGEVEN (for AGE-EVENT) calendar includes the main events in the interviewee’s life (birth, residential movements, employments, marriage, etc.) with precise dates.

  6. 6.

    Subsequent research revealed that the situation was more complex, as the majority of migrant settlers in Petén had come from regions of Guatemala other than the highlands or altiplano (INE 2003; Carr 2008).

  7. 7.

    Geodetic control points refer to the use of GPS receivers to document on the ground key locations observable from satellites, which can be used to precisely fit satellite images to ground observations, such as road intersections, rivers, bridges, large buildings, etc.

  8. 8.

    Reliable data on whole households migrating away cannot be obtained from surveys conducted in origin area households only since there is no one left to provide data. A new methodology was accordingly tested, asking community leaders to list households departing since 2000—name of head, number of persons leaving, when (last person in household) left and destination. This can produce usable data in small rural communities, where community leaders know everyone and are, therefore, cognizant of when whole households left. Almost all studies of out-migration are based on originarea-only household surveys, which cannot obtain reliable data on whole households leaving. To the extent, the factors affecting their migration are different from those affecting the out-migration of individuals, understanding of migration is biased.

  9. 9.

    Note that young individuals age into the relevant age pool during the reference period, while those in their thirties age out.

  10. 10.

    The precise month of the move, rather than only the year, can be obtained, so information on the migrant (employment, marital event, wages) and the household (e.g., composition) can be obtained for a period just before the decision rather than only contemporaneous, in the same year.

  11. 11.

    Pattern metrics measures were used as dependent variables to capture aspects of land use change and fragmentation at the farm level in Pan et al. (2004) for the Ecuadorian Amazon. Metrics used were fragmentation of land use, patch density and total edges per unit area, for each farm.

  12. 12.

    In this context, it is important to highlight the initiative of the Internal Migration around the Globe (IMAGE) project that aims to collect and compare data on internal migration in more than 150 countries (http://www.gpem.uq.edu.au/image).

  13. 13.

    University of East Anglia, UK, http://www.cru.uea.ac.uk/.

  14. 14.

    http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/oa/ncdc.html.

  15. 15.

    FAO, World Programme for the Census of Agriculture, 2010 (www.fao.org/es/ess).

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Acknowledgments

For Burkina Faso, we are grateful to the Institut Superieur des Sciences de la Population (Burkina Faso), the Université de Montréal (Canada), and the Program Majeur en Population et Développement (Mali) for access to the demographic and community data, and to the Climatic Research Unit (UK) for rainfall data. For Guatemala, the data and questionnaire are publicly available. Funding for the original Ecuador data collection in 2008 and the preliminary analysis was provided by the US National Institutes of Health (R21-HD052092). Data were collected by the Centro de Estudios de Población y Desarrollo Social (Quito). Brian Frizzelle of the Spatial Analysis Unit of the UNC Carolina Population Center obtained and analyzed the satellite imagery. Finally, we are grateful for useful comments on a previous draft from Clark Gray and two anonymous referees.

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  1. Carolina Population Center, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, 123 W. Franklin Street, Chapel Hill, NC, 27516-2524, USA

    Richard E. Bilsborrow

  2. Département de Géographie, Facultés Universitaires Notre-Dame de la Paix, Universite de Namur, 61, rue de Bruxelles, 5000, Namur, Belgium

    Sabine J. F. Henry

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Bilsborrow, R.E., Henry, S.J.F. The use of survey data to study migration–environment relationships in developing countries: alternative approaches to data collection. Popul Environ 34, 113–141 (2012). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11111-012-0177-1

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Keywords

  • Migration
  • Rural environment
  • Household survey
  • Remote sensing
  • Land use
  • Climate change
  • Burkina Faso
  • Guatemala
  • Ecuador