Type

Journal Article

Author(s)

Barrios Puente, G.
Perez, F.
Gitter, R. J.

Title

The Effect of Rainfall on Migration from Mexico to the United States

Date

2016

Journal

International Migration Review

Vol (No), pp

50(4), 890-909

Abstract

There has been very little work on the impact of rainfall on migration from Mexico or even elsewhere. We use satellite data from NASA to examine the effect of the lagged level of rainfall relative to an area’s historical average, on migration from small Mexican communities to the United States. Controlling for the level of education, proportion married, and historic migration levels, we find higher levels of rainfall significantly reduce Mexican migration to the United States and a 20 percentage point higher-than-normal level of rainfall leads to a predicted 10.3 percent decrease in migration.

Citation

Barrios Puente, G., Perez, F., Gitter, R. J. (2016). The Effect of Rainfall on Migration from Mexico to the United States. International Migration Review, 50(4), 890-909. DOI : 10.1111/imre.12116.