Austin Davis, Migration and Resilience During a Global Crisis
In a new co-authored article in European Economic Review, SIS Professor Austin Davis explores the relationship between migration and household resilience 69´«Ã½ a global crisis that eliminated the option to migrate. The authors link prior data from four populations in Bangladesh and Nepal to new phone surveys conducted 69´«Ã½ the early months of the COVID-19 pandemic.
While earnings fell universally, pandemic-induced declines were 14%–25% greater among previously migration-dependent households and urban migrant workers, with household remittance losses far exceeding official statistics. Heightened economic exposure 69´«Ã½ the pandemic erased prior gains achieved by transnational migrants and caused fourfold greater prevalence of food insecurity among domestic subsistence migrants. Economic distress spilled over onto non-migrants in high-migration villages and labor markets.
Davis and his co-authors show that migration contributed to economic contagion independent of its role in disease transmission. Losing the option to migrate differentially increased the vulnerability of migration-dependent households 69´«Ã½ a crisis.
Read the full article .