Household mobility responses to weather extremes in Kyrgyzstan

Abstract

Abstract Weather extremes increasingly shape human mobility, yet their effects differ across households and locations. We advance understanding of climate-related mobility by distinguishing among four outcomes: domestic mobility, international mobility, combined domestic-international mobility, and immobility, rather than treating mobility as a simple binary choice. Focusing on Kyrgyzstan, a climate-vulnerable mountainous country in Central Asia, we combine nationally representative household panel data from 2013–2022 with high-resolution climate data. Here, we show that weather extremes, both within districts and in neighboring districts, are more strongly associated with international mobility and immobility than with domestic and combined domestic-international mobility. Responses differ substantially across households’ socioeconomic position, with immobility more common among households with lower socioeconomic position and more diverse mobility patterns observed among households with higher socioeconomic position. Our findings suggest that mobility responses to weather extremes in Kyrgyzstan are shaped by both geographic context and household socioeconomic position.