Environmental influences on African migration to Canada: focus group findings from Ottawa-Gatineau.

ABSTRACT: There is limited empirical evidence of how environmental conditions in the Global South may influence long-distance international migration to the Global North. This research note reports findings from seven focus groups held in Ottawa-Gatineau, Canada, with recent migrants from the Horn of Africa and francophone sub-Saharan Africa, where the role of environment in migration decision-making was discussed. Participants stated that those most affected by environmental challenges in their home countries lack the financial wherewithal to migrate to Canada. Participants also suggested that internal rural-urban migration patterns generated by environmental challenges in their home countries underlay socioeconomic factors that contributed to their own migration. In other words, environment is a s

SUBMITTER: Veronis L 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC4223532 | biostudies-literature | 2014

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature