Natural Shocks and Internal Labor Migration: Evidence from Pakistan

Abstract

Pakistan is among the hardest hit countries by natural disasters, particularly floods, earthquakes, and droughts. The study examines the impact of floods, earthquakes, and droughts on Pakistan's internal labor migration. Using the probit model, we determine whether the labor migration decision will differ in shock-affected and other districts in Pakistan. The findings show that internal labor migration likely decreases in shock-affected districts compared to other districts. We analyze the data separately for the rural and urban, male and female, and employed, unemployed and not-in-labor force for the robustness check. Urban region evidence is consistent with baseline results. However, for rural regions, the coefficient of natural shocks is statistically insignificant in the whole sample and across subsamples meaning that natural shocks have no significant impact on internal labor migration in the rural region.