Working Paper: NBER ID: w23122
Authors: Robert Jensen; Nolan H. Miller
Abstract: In rural areas of most developing countries, intergenerational coresidence is both widespread and an important determinant of well-being for the elderly. Most parents want at least one adult child to remain at home (e.g., so they can work on the family farm or provide care and assistance around the house). However, children themselves may prefer to migrate when they grow up, and parents cannot directly prevent them from doing so. We present a model where parents may strategically limit investments in some children's education so that they will not find it optimal to migrate when they reach maturity, and will thus voluntarily choose to remain home. We provide evidence for the model’s predictions using an intervention that provided recruiting services for the business process outsourcing industry in randomly selected rural Indian villages. Because awareness of these high-paying, high education, urban jobs was limited at baseline, the intervention increased the attractiveness of migration for educated children. Consistent with the model, in response to the treatment we find declines in school enrollment among children that parents reported wanting to remain home at baseline. Children that parents want to migrate have increased enrollment, and parents want more children to migrate.
Keywords: Migration; Education; Rural Development; Human Capital
JEL Codes: D1; I21; J14; O12; O15
Edges that are evidenced by causal inference methods are in orange, and the rest are in light blue.
| Cause | Effect |
|---|---|
| urban returns to education increase (R29) | parents reduce educational investments (I21) |
| urban returns to education increase (R29) | increase in enrollment for children whose parents desire them to migrate (I25) |
| parents' preferences (J13) | educational outcomes (I26) |
| intervention (D74) | girls' education significantly increased (I24) |