摘要：In the West African Sahel, the majority of the population depends on subsistence farming and livestock breedingand is thus particularly vulnerable to climatic changes. One possible response to natural hazards is migration. Recent researchsuggests that environmentally induced mobility is closely linked to the social vulnerability and adaptive capacity of individualsand groups. However, only little attention has been paid thus far to the role of formal education in this context. Our objectivewas to fill this gap by examining the role of formal education in environmentally induced migration as one characteristic ofsocial vulnerability to environmental change. Our analysis focuses on two regions in the West African Sahel, Bandiagara inMali and Linguère in Senegal, that are presumed to be particularly affected by climate change and environmental degradation.Our results reveal that formal education plays an important role in reducing vulnerability to environmental stress because peoplewith a higher level of education are usually less dependent on environmentally sensitive economic activities such as farming.Moreover, an agricultural economic activity can be an obstacle to a high level of formal education. We found no significanteffect of people's education on the migration experience as such. However, motives for migration differ considerably dependingon the amount of education received, suggesting that migration constitutes a livelihood strategy, particularly for the lowereducated
