How does migration, as part of the demographic transition, contribute to enhanced resilience and security by altering the use if natural resources?

The framework defines resilience as the ability of households and communities to cope with external stress and to secure access to sustained livelihoods. The ongoing research, based on fieldwork in lowland northern Vietnam, is beginning to understand how contemporary liberalisation of labour markets and increased migration provides opportunities for diversified livelihoods as well as for expanded economic opportunities, while having offsetting impacts on resilience.

More generally, the impacts of migration are important both as a driver of demographic change and as a component of human response to environmental pressures.

About Neil Adger
Neil Adger is an environmental economist researching the processes of adaptation and resilience in the context of global environmental change. He has worked on social vulnerability to hazards and climate change in Asia and on the economics of inequality, resilience and resource use.

He is presently leading a research programme on 'Social Capital and Resilience' in the new CSERGE at University of East Anglia and is Programme Manager on 'Enhancing the Options for Adaptation and Mitigation' for the new Tyndall Cenre for Climate Change Research based at UEA.