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Migration and mobility on the Amazon frontier

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Abstract

Migration patterns within tropical forest frontiers are highly complex and multidirectional, with movements to, from, and within these regions likely driven by different macro and micro factors. As such, several different conceptual models have been suggested to explain these dynamics. This paper uses data from a panel survey of households in a frontier region of the western Brazilian Amazon along with “second hand” reports on where people have moved to evaluate these conceptual models. Our rich data set, collected over nearly a decade from hundreds of households, allows us to compare households who arrived at different ages to assess predictions of the life cycle hypothesis; those who have been in the state (or on their properties) for different numbers of years to investigate the turnover hypothesis; those who arrived with different levels of capital to examine path dependence as suggested by conceptual models that focus on wealth dynamics; and the destination and purpose for moves from and within the study region to look for evidence of the frontier expansion hypothesis. We do not find any evidence for the turnover hypothesis, perhaps due to the favorable biophysical and market conditions in our study region. However, patterns in this region are consistent with all of the other conceptual models, reflecting the overlapping theoretical foundations of the models, and the complexity of migration and mobility on the frontier.

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Notes

  1. This immigration rate is a calculation between censuses and is, therefore, an expression of mobility "balance" (entrances and exits) in "long" periods.

  2. Here, the “North” is defined by the Brazilian Institute of Geography and Statistics (IBGE) to include Acre, Amapá, Amazonas, Rondônia, Roraima, Pará, and Tocantins.

  3. Population figures for these states in 1960 were as follows: Acre (160,208), Amapá (68,889), Amazonas (721,215), Rondônia (70,783), Roraima (29489), Pará (1,5509,35), and present-day Tocantins (328,486). Source: IBGE (2010)

  4. In addition, in both years the sample was enriched with observations from a control group of farmers that participated in a World Bank sponsored non-governmental organization (NGO) devoted to the use of sustainable agricultural practices: APA (Association of Alternative Producers). Since this sample of farmers was not drawn randomly, these data are not considered in this paper.

  5. Several households moved to the new settlements recently occupied by large groups of individuals with the support of the Landless Workers Movement “Movemento dos Trabalhadores Sem Terra” (MST), and recognized by the Federal Colonization and Agrarian Reform Institute “Instituto Nacional de Colonização e Reforma Agrária” (INCRA).

  6. Probit models are standard regression methods used for binary dependent variables. Estimating models of binary outcomes by ordinary least squares would produce biased results since the dependent variable is bound between 0 and 1. Probit models are estimated using standard maximum likelihood procedures and can be interpreted as the probability that a certain event, here moving off the lot, occurs. The marginal effects of the explanatory variables vary with the levels of those variables, but the coefficients can be interpreted as showing the direction and statistical significance of the effects. Since a Probit regression coefficient does not indicate the change in the probability of the event when the independent variable increases by one unit, the marginal effects (partial derivatives) for each coefficient at the means of the explanatory variables are calculated and presented in Table 10 along with the coefficients.

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Acknowledgments

This research was generously supported by the National Science Foundation, under grants SES-0452852 and SES-0076549, as well as the National Security Education Program, the Organization of American States, the Institute for the Study of World Politics, and the McClure Fund Foundation. We would like to thank our survey team: Stella Maris de Souza Freitas, Eliane S. Pedlowski, Ivone Holz Seidel, Taís Helena Akatsu, Luciana Bussolaro Baraba, and Tânia Rodrigues Luz for their tireless efforts to complete the household surveys in 2005 as well as the local residents of Ouro Preto do Oeste for their participation. We would like to thank Marcos Pedlowski for logistical support, assistance with our survey registry, and for selecting a remarkable set of women to serve on our team. We would like to thank Crisanto Lopes de Oliveira for all of his work on our survey registry. We would also like to thank Carlos José da Silva for serving as a driver and guide to our GIS team. His local knowledge was invaluable. Finally, we would like to thank Daniel Harris and Suzanne McArdle for the creation of the maps that are included on this paper. A majority, if not all, of the data used in the analysis can be found at the archive of social science data for research and instruction at the Inter-university Consortium for Political and Social Research of the University of Michigan. All location identifiers have been removed.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Economics and Finance Department, Salisbury University, Salisbury, MD, 21804-6860, USA

    Jill L. Caviglia-Harris

  2. Department of Forestry and Environmental Resources, North Carolina State University, Raleigh, NC, 27695-8008, USA

    Erin O. Sills

  3. Department of Agricultural and Resource Economics, University of California, Berkeley, 207 Giannini Hall, Berkeley, CA, 94720, USA

    Katrina Mullan

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  1. Jill L. Caviglia-Harris
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Correspondence to Jill L. Caviglia-Harris.

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Caviglia-Harris, J.L., Sills, E.O. & Mullan, K. Migration and mobility on the Amazon frontier. Popul Environ 34, 338–369 (2013). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11111-012-0169-1

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