Lucile Dehouck (Paris School of Economics, Université Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne)

Lucile Dehouck
Paris School of Economics, Université Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne

Abstract

Rural Ethiopia faces persistent challenges in accessing drinking water, exacerbated by the escalating impacts of climate change. Yet, the effects of drinking water scarcity on migration remain poorly understood. This paper explores how wells failure influence migration decisions. Establishing a causal relationship is challenging due to the nonrandom nature of water insecurity. To overcome this, I leverage a new data base, documenting well locations and a one-time assessment of their functional status across Sub-Saharan Africa, to train an algorithm predicting well failures. Based on climate, geological, and hydrogeological factors, I generate monthly predictions of well status, allowing me to track functionality over time. I then link these predictions with the Ethiopian Socio-Economic Surveys spanning 2012 to 2016, using them as an exogenous proxy for drinking water access. Preliminary results show that migration increases with prolonged periods without a functional well in places facing drought. To further validate these findings, I incorporate two alternative measures of drinking water access: first, time-invariant data on well functionality; and second, an instrumental variable approach at the household level, using the median time to fetch water within an enumeration area. Both methods yield results consistent with the primary analysis.

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