- English
In climate-vulnerable coastal regions, left-behind family members often choose to stay despite having migration
pathways through departed household members, challenging conventional theories of family reunification. This
study examines the influence of psychosocial integration on non-migration aspirations among 411 left-behind
households in coastal Bangladesh, where primary income earners have migrated, but other household members
maintain residence in hazardous areas. Utilizing multistage sampling from the Khulna and Satkhira districts,
results from sequential binary logistic regression and structural equation modeling suggest that a significant
majority of households express no interest in migration despite climate vulnerability. Psychosocial integration—
encompassing place attachment, social capital, community belonging, and institutional ties—emerges as
the predominant predictor of this immobility. Counterintuitively, households with higher educational attainment
and economic resources exhibit stronger place attachment rather than a propensity for family reunification,
suggesting that resource accumulation reinforces rootedness rather than facilitating departure. A longer duration
of residence further entrenches this immobility, reflecting the cumulative nature of place-based investment over
time. These patterns indicate deliberate adaptation: households compensate for family separation through
intensified community embeddedness, with direct implications for climate policies that must navigate competing
loyalties between place attachment and family reunification. Theoretically, we develop the notion of ‘informed
rootedness’ and suggest three revisions to existing frameworks: a specification of a (‘endogenous aspirations’)
auricular model for the AC framework that provides space for capabilities to improve rather than degrade place based
aspirations; a ‘dual-capacity’ reconceptualization of education that raises mobility potential as well as local
adaptive capacity; and attention to collective aspects in non-mobility decision-making that stretch beyond individual
cost–benefit reflections.
- English
