Weathering Changes: Livelihood Adaptation to Weather Shocks in Rural India by Disadvantaged Social Groups

In this article, we examine how households from disadvantaged social groups in India adapt through migration to climate-related shocks. We examine the relative importance of factors like social networks and public intervention in enabling adaptation to slow-onset climate change. We use household- and village-level data from two consecutive waves of the Indian Human Development Survey and gridded weather data from CRU at the University of East Anglia for our analysis. Our results indicate that, in India, major changes in dryness significantly increase migration, but disadvantaged social groups facing climate change are less likely to migrate. Social networks do not play any significant role in the migration behaviour of disadvantaged groups facing these changes. Efficient implementation of poverty alleviation programmes does improve the probability of migration among these groups. JEL Codes: O15, Q54