Migration and Child Well-Being: The Perspective from Sending Areas

Columbia University, New York NY

Investigators

Abstract

The proposed project will examine the effects of parental out-migration on child well-being in two developing settings. Rising internal and international migration has affected a growing number of children in developing countries. Most of these children are left behind as one or both parents leave to seek work elsewhere. Migration represents a distinct form of parental absence, and is likely to affect these children in complex ways, generating sizeable social costs as a result of parental absence, but bringing economic benefits through remittances. Using high-quality longitudinal datasets from Mexico and Indonesia with excellent comparability and rich micro- and macro-level information, this project seeks to: examine both the beneficial and detrimental impacts of migration on key aspects of well-being (education, cognitive development, and health) of children left behind in Mexico and Indonesia; explore how various socioeconomic, psychosocial, and behavioral factors mediate the effects of migration on child well-being; and assess the generalizability of results across two streams of migration (within-country and cross-country) and across the two research settings. Longitudinal data analysis methods (fixed- and random-effect modeling) will be used to strengthen causal claims. This research will provide comprehensive and robust information on the effects of out-migration on children and will have practical policy implications, not only for the two study settings, but also for other developing countries experiencing large-scale migration. Such information can inform the design of intervention programs by local governments and global development organizations such as USAID and UNICEF, to reinforce the benefits while mitigating the costs of out-migration for children. The proposed pathway analysis has the greatest promise of translating scientific knowledge into intervention strategies, as it helps to uncover specific factors that could be more effectively targeted. The cross-country comparison also will strengthen the study, helping to distinguish common from context-specific processes, thus leading to more efficient design and implementation of the intervention programs across different settings.