Environmental Degradation: A Sociological Study of Mental Health Struggle and Migration Intentions Among Rural Households in Sindh.

Abstract

This paper examines the various intertwined effects of environmental degradation, psychological well-being issues, and migration plans of rural families in Sindh province of Pakistan within the framework of Green Sociology. Communities are both physically susceptible and emotionally distressed as the climate change aggravates in the region where floods, droughts and hot temperatures become recurrent. Sample of 384 respondents in Tharparkar, Badin, and Thatta districts are used to collect data through a structured questionnaire to study how the exposure to ecological stressor leads to psychological stress fearing eco-anxiety, depression, and stress, and how this in turn develops intentions of migration of rural households. The study also looks at the social support factor in the moderating effect of these influences. SEM as a method of analyzing data was performed. The findings show that the environmental degradation is an important predictor of mental health challenges, and these mental health challenges partly mediated its connection with intentions to migrate. These results also demonstrate that mental health care and community resilience efforts need to be linked to climate adaptation policies urgently. This research builds upon both ecological sociology and the migration research based on the provision of empirical data on how the ecological change not only preconditions economic displacement but also emotional and social change in climate-sensitive areas of countryside.