Working Paper No. 08-02

Parental Migration and Child Education: Evidence from Variation in Child Age During Parental Absence

Francisca Antman

June 2007 (updated June 2008)

ABSTRACT

What are the long-term effects of parental migration on child education? Does it matter how old the child was when the parent migrated? This paper uses a family fixed-effects regression model to get around the endogeneity of parental migration, thereby establishing a positive link between paternal U.S. migration and child’s ultimate educational attainment. In particular, the evidence suggests that pushing father’s U.S. migration earlier in a child’s life, particularly before they are born, would lead to an increase in child educational attainment of about 2 years relative to delaying migration until after the child has turned 25. These results are consistent with a story in which U.S. migration enables families to save for their children’s educations and/or a situation in which the experience of U.S. migration translates into parental willingness to increase investments in their children’s educations. These findings also suggest that policies aimed at targeting migrant workers should generally promote migration before the birth of children over migration later in life.

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