Essays on Migration and Development
Open AccessEssays on Migration and DevelopmentThe dissertation comprises three essays on migration and economic development. The first two essays assess how temporary migration from the household affects ‘left-behind’ female spouse and children. The third essay identifies factors that predict remittance flows from migrants to source regions. All essays advance policy implications. Labor migrants from developing regions move to regions that offer higher wage employment, resulting in the rise in transnational families. In the first essay I examine the relationship between spousal migration and entrepreneurial activity (work as self-employed or employer) of left-behind female spouse. I find that wives of migrant husbands are more than twice as likely (5 percentage-points higher) to engage in entrepreneurship, than their counterparts whose husbands are not migrants and whose rate of entrepreneurship is about 4 percent. Policy implications of this research extend to leveraging entrepreneurship for larger development impact.In the second essay, I examine the effect of parental migration on left-behind children’s educational outcomes. I find that children of migrant parents have net lower educational outcomes, as compared with children whose parents are not migrants. I further explore potential mechanisms of effect and find that the negative effect of parental absence supersedes the positive effect of remittances. My findings suggest that migration can lower crucial upper-secondary school educational outcomes, which may have implications for human capital competitiveness. It alerts policymakers to the uphill task ahead, while reaping the benefits of migration-led development they ought to prepare for the next-generation of skills-based development.In the third essay, I estimate the effect of factors related to migrant’s connections to the origin and host countries that shape their remittance behavior. I explore how migrant groups from different migration corridors and cultural backgrounds, residing in the same host economy, could differ in remittance motivations. Results suggest that the decision to remit is shaped by a wide set of factors, including family welfare, investment motives in origin and host countries, and migration status. In contrast, the level of remittances is shaped by fewer factors and related only to connections to the origin country. Migrant groups exhibit heterogeneity in remittance behavior. I find suggestive evidence that cultural background plays a limited role in the decision to remit but a prominent role in the level of remittances.
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