Background

Data on internal migration remains particularly patchy which in turns limits ability of assessing trends of migration. Contextual information has been lacking on the significance of rural out-migration in LMICs. Therefore, the question “what is happening in rural communities as a result of out-migration?” becomes second behind “How could we know what is happening in deprived rural areas?”.

Investigating the nexus between migration and climate change in rural settings in Ethiopia, we have taken the opportunity to use HDSS data, a high-potential data source. By tracking population changes -fertility, mortality, migration - the HDSSs (health and demographic surveillance systems) are filling a gap in developing databases which can provide a critical resource for migration researchers and be investigated to examine the practices and patterns of migration over place and time in rural areas particularly vulnerable to climatic change.

Established in 2007 in Kersa, district of eastern Hararege, Oromia region, Eastern Ethiopia, the Kersa Demographic Surveillance and Health Research Center (KDS-HRC) has been carrying out a longitudinal population-based tracking of about 148 000 individuals.  

Our study seeks to understand what are the motivations and demographic or climatic events pushing people to move out. The KDS-HRC data are thus perfectly of interest to cross and combine biographic data at the individual and household levels (demographic attributes of the investigated individuals who stay/who go) with climatic and environmental data to unravel the logic of the migration decision and shed light on the pushing factors of outmigration in the studied area.