Climate Variability and Human Migration in the Netherlands, 1865-1937

Area of Science:

• Historical demography
• Climate change impacts
• Human migration patterns

Background:

• Human migration is often linked to climate change, with assumptions of stronger past effects due to less developed economies.
• Limited historical data exists to directly test the climate-migration relationship, and recent findings challenge conventional displacement narratives.

Purpose of the Study:

• To investigate the effects of climate variability on human migration using historical demographic and climate data.
• To test the hypothesis that climate impacts on migration were stronger in less developed historical economies.

Main Methods:

• Utilized longitudinal individual-level demographic data from the Historical Sample of the Netherlands (HSN).
• Employed event history models to analyze the relationship between climate variability and migration events.
• Integrated historical climate data covering the same period as the demographic data.

Main Results:

• Observed associations between negative climate conditions and internal migration were limited to specific social groups and the later historical period.
• The strength and direction of climate's influence on migration varied over time.
• Extreme rainfall was associated with a decrease in international migration.

Conclusions:

• The complex relationship between climate and migration, seen in contemporary populations, was also present in the nineteenth century.
• Historical migration responses to climate variability were nuanced and not universally stronger in the past.
• Findings challenge simple narratives of climate-driven displacement in historical contexts.