Sierra: Rural-to-Urban Migration and Immobility Related to Water Scarcity in Peru’s Highlands
Authors: Bergmann Jonas 
Published: October 2023

The research interest in the Lima Region in Peru’s Central Highlands was in longer-distance, rural-to-urban migration from two villages, both harmed by two types of gradual climate impacts: glacier retreat and rainfall changes. The villages V1 and V2 were the starting points to trace migrants in the Regional and national capitals Huancayo and Lima. This dynamic is of interest for two reasons: first, water scarcity due to glacier retreat and rainfall changes is already salient across the highlands (Sierra). Migration from the Sierra can be shaped by both such rainfall changes and glacier retreat. Second, while rainfall projections are uncertain, future glacier loss will be severe even for low emission scenarios, with likely strong impacts on water security and migration. In the first section of this chapter, I provide information on the geographical context, measured and projected climate change trends and impacts, exposure, vulnerabilities, local coping and adaptation, and hazard-related migration in Peru’s highlands. Afterwards, I describe the empirical results of the new case study, discuss them, and induce propositions on broader well-being impacts of climate (im)mobilities. The findings suggest that the climate-related migration occurred under relatively adverse structural conditions. Movements ranged from more voluntary to clearly forced instances, often with relatively limited agency. Among those remaining, age differentials influenced future migration aspirations. At the destinations in Lima and Huancayo, migrants’ well-being results were on average more net-negative than net-positive. Two factions can be identified. The first group covers most of the interviewees who had left the increasingly adverse situations in their home villages in recent years under distress conditions and arrived with limited baseline resources and skills in the oversaturated, large urban agglomerations. These migrants experienced great challenges for their development from a secure base and a space to live better, while gradually reaching similar or better social relatedness as before migration. Although they were subsisting in the cities, multiple deprivations restricted their development prospects. These migrants with multiple unmet needs subjectively suffered from deprivation in their cognitive satisfaction and emotions; only few reported partial and gradual adjustment. By contrast, the second group comprises a small number of migrants who achieved urban upward mobility, in particular those who had moved voluntarily and a longer time ago. In often-arduous processes, they have used urban education and job opportunities to improve their well-being and long-term prospects. This small group evaluated its needs as mostly fulfilled. Nonetheless, both the large number of migrants losing OWB and the few ones gaining OWB held mostly negative views of the future. Using these empirical findings from Peru’s highlands, I conclude by inducing broader propositions on the well-being of climate migrants in cities and stayers in rural source areas.