Whether the environmental factors matter out migration in KDSS

Nucharee Srivirojana, Mahidol University

Evidences from past migration events suggested that adverse environmental condition can have influence on population’s decision to migrate. Force and impelled migration due to natural disaster, ie., drought, flooding and storm can accelerate internal out migration from a village. Due to this reason, secondary data from the Kanchanaburi Demographic Surveillance System (KDSS) in 2004 was employed to find out whether the environmental factors matter population out migration in KDSS or not. Multi-level regression model was applied to find out influence of environmental factors at individual, household and village level on out migration. The results of this study show that even though economic and social conditions are the main reasons for out migration, environmental factors, ie. natural disaster, accessibility to land and natural resources are also a major push factors for out migration in KDSS.