Impacts of migration and migrant’s gender on children’s school enrollment and child work in viet nam

UNIVERSITY OF ECONOMICS

INSTITUTE OF SOCIAL STUDIES

HO CHIMINH CITY

THE HAGUE

VIETNAM

THE NETHERLANDS

VIETNAM - NETHERLANDS
PROGRAMME FOR M.A IN DEVELOPMENT ECONOMICS

IMPACTS OF MIGRATION AND MIGRANT’S GENDER
ON CHILDREN’S SCHOOL ENROLLMENT AND CHILD
WORK IN VIET NAM

BY

VÕ THỊ THU HOÀI

MASTER OF ARTS IN DEVELOPMENT ECONOMICS

HO CHI MINH CITY, APRIL 2014
i


UNIVERSITY OF ECONOMICS

INSTITUTE OF SOCIAL STUDIES
THE HAGUE

HO CHIMINHCITY
VIETNAM

THE NETHERLANDS

VIETNAM - NETHERLANDS
PROGRAMME FOR M.A IN DEVELOPMENT ECONOMICS

IMPACTS OF MIGRATION AND MIGRANT’S GENDER
ON CHILDREN’S SCHOOL ENROLLMENT AND CHILD
WORK IN VIET NAM
A thesis submitted in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of
MASTER OF ARTS IN DEVELOPMENT ECONOMICS

By

VÕ THỊ THU HOÀI

Academic Supervisor

Dr. TRAN TIEN KHAI
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CERTIFICATION
“I certify that the substance of this dissertation has not already been submitted for any
degree and is not currently submitted for any other degree

I certify that to the best of my knowledge and help received in preparing this dissertation
and all source used, have been acknowledged in this dissertation”

VO THI THU HOAI

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ACKNOWLEDGEMENT
This thesis would have not been fulfilled without special assistances from some
individuals, group, family who have contributed to my studying process.
Foremost, I would like to express my sincere gratitude to my supervisor Dr.
Tran Tien Khai who continuously support of my M.A thesis by his patience, enthusiasm
and immense knowledge. His guidance helped me all the time to research and writing the
thesis.
Secondly, I would like to thank Dr. Truong Dang Thuy because of his dedicated
support in research method during the time of this thesis. All of his help strongly to find
the solution and improves this paper.
Besides, my sincere thanks also go to Dr. Nguyen Trong Hoai, Dr. Pham Khanh Nam
who supervised and motivated the Class MDE 17 to finish the course on time.
It is grateful to thank my classmates of MDE17 MDE18, VNP staffs for
stimulating discussions, for the fun time we had together.
Last and not the least, I would like to express my grateful thank to my family
who are always beside me, give me the birth and support me throughout my life
April, 2014

VO THI THU HOAI
Email:

iv

ABSTRACT
Accompany with development trend in over the world, migration flow plays important
role in Vietnamese economy. It contributes to the significant income and raises the living
standard for household in the country, specially, in rural areas. This paper tries to
measure the impact of migration on children’s schooling enrollment and child work,
addition to, determine how migrant’s gender matter in this impact. The context is applied
in rural areas in Vietnam with the dataset of VHLSS 2010 by Instrument variable method
to deal with the problem of endogeneity of migration. From the first stage of migrant
indicator, it indicates that instrument historical migration network and number of male
adults will impact on migrant indicator significantly and these instruments are the strong
instruments. The results show that the presence of migrant in the household will make the
children take part in school more, at the same time make children work less. Besides, not
like others researches, gender of migrant and time of migrant using in household don’t
have meaning with children’s welfare.
Keywords: migration, migrant’s gender, children’s school enrollment, child work

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TABLE OF CONTENT
ABSTRACT ................................................................................................................................... v
CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION ................................................................................................ 1
1.1.

Problem statement.......................................................................................................... 1

1.2.

Research Objectives ....................................................................................................... 3

1.3.

Research question ........................................................................................................... 3

1.4.

Research scope ................................................................................................................ 3

1.5.

Structure of the research ............................................................................................... 3

CHAPTER 2: LITERATURE REVIEW ................................................................................... 5
2.1.

Definition of key concept ............................................................................................... 5

2.2.

Theoretical literature ..................................................................................................... 5

2.3.

Empirical literature...................................................................................................... 12

2.4.

Conceptual framework ................................................................................................ 16

CHAPTER 3: METHODOLOGY ............................................................................................ 18
3.1.

Endogeneity problem ................................................................................................... 18

3.2.

Endogeneity of migration ............................................................................................ 18

3.3.

Estimated equation ....................................................................................................... 20

3.3.1.

Validity of Instrument variable: .......................................................................... 20

3.3.2.

IVs methods ........................................................................................................... 20

3.3.3.

Estimated equation: .............................................................................................. 24

3.3.4.

Method to run IVs regression .............................................................................. 26

3.4.

Data ................................................................................................................................ 28

3.4.1.

Source of data ........................................................................................................ 28

3.4.2.

Variables description and measurement: ........................................................... 29

CHAPTER 4: OVERVIEW OF MIGRATION IN CASE OF VIETNAM ........................... 36
4.1.

Socio-economic setting and migration in Vietnam .................................................... 36

4.1.1.

Migration aboard .................................................................................................. 36

4.1.2.

Internal migration ................................................................................................. 37

4.2.

Characteristics of migrant ........................................................................................... 39
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4.2.1.

International migrant ........................................................................................... 39

4.2.2.

Internal migrant .................................................................................................... 44

CHAPTER 5: EMPERICAL ANALYSIS ................................................................................ 46
5.1.

Descriptions of variables.............................................................................................. 46

5.2.

Estimation results ......................................................................................................... 51

5.3.

Interpretation of results ............................................................................................... 57

CHAPTER 6: CONCLUSIONS AND RECOMMENDATIONS ........................................... 63
6.1. Conclusions ....................................................................................................................... 63
6.2. Recommendations: ........................................................................................................... 64
6.3. Limitations ........................................................................................................................ 65
REFERENCE .............................................................................................................................. 67
APPENDIX .................................................................................................................................. 70

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LIST OF FIGURES
Figure 2.1: Conceptual framework about impact of migration and migrant’s gender on
children’s welfare.................................................................................................................. 1717
Figure 3.1: Histogram of expenditure per capita a year .......................................................... 31
Figure 3.2: Histogram of natural logarithm of expenditure per capita a year ........................ 31
Figure 4.1: International migration trend from 2000 to 2010 (Department of oversea
database) ................................................................................................................................... 40
Figure 4.2: Number of male and female international migrant from 2006-2010 (IOM).......... 41
Figure 4.3: Main destinations of international migrant from 2000-2010 (IOM) ..................... 42
Figure 4.4: Structure of international migration labor of Viet Nam from 2006-2010 (IOM,
2011).......................................................................................................................................... 43

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LIST OF TABLES
Table 3.1: Description and measurement of variables ............................................................. 32
Table 5.1: T-test between household with non-migrant and household with migrant .............. 48
Table 5.2: T-test between household with male migrant and household with female migrant . 50
Table 5.3: Factors affecting migration indicator in the household (results of first stage
regression of Instrumental variables) ....................................................................................... 53
Table 5.4: Factors affecting children’s school enrollment and child work (results of second
stage regression of Instrumental variables) .............................................................................. 56

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ABBREVIATIONS

BLUE:

Best linear unbiased estimates

DID:

Difference in difference

GSO:

General statistic office

IOM:

International Organization for Migration

IVs:

Instrumental variables

OLS:

Ordinary least square

PSM:

Propensity score matching methods.

VHLSS: Vietnam Household Living Standard Survey
UN:

United Nations

UNDP:

United Nations Development Programme

US:

United Stages

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CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION
1.1. Problem statement
According to analysis of International Organization for Migration (IOM), there were
more than 215 million external migrants (live outside of their countries because of many
reasons) and over 700 million internal migrants (within country) in 2009. The remittance
has increased gradually in recent years, besides that, remittance flow in developing
countries was estimated to have totaled $401 billion in 2012. Global remittance included
developed countries were estimated about $529 billion (World Bank, 2012). Remittance
plays an important in economic development by reducing poverty, leading to higher
living standard of human such as health, education, access technologies…improving
access to formal financial sector, better preparedness for disasters, …etc. Moreover, in
coming decades, under the pressure of demographic forces, globalization and climate
change, migration will increase sharply. It needs to have advanced data to research about
the impacts of migration and remittances on human life and economy. From that, the
policy maker can have the correct direction for migration sector in the future.
From economic renovation in 1986, Viet Nam had many remarks in development

process. Among them, shifting from centrally-planned economy to a socialist-oriented
market economy for industrialization, modernization was a long step in policies and
economic aspect. Beside the diversification and multilateral development of open-door
economic, more and more Vietnamese aboard to live and work. External migration
contributes to economy and raises the living standard of remaining people. In 2012, Viet
Nam was rated in seventh among the biggest receiving remittances countries ($ 10
billion) with about 4 million oversea Vietnamese. From 1991, it was accounted about 6070% remittances comparing to foreign investment. Remittance not only plays an
important role in Vietnam’s economy, but also affects to the demographic of Vietnamese
people. According to United Nations Development Programme (2009), estimated amount
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of money which migrant send back to their family reaches 5.5 billion dollars in 2007. In
parallel with that, internal migration from rural to urban has become a general upward
trend in Viet Nam a few last year. Not only male, the share of female migrants has
strongly dominated and played an important role in migrant worker (a half of internal
migration in 2009). Most migrants have close relationship with their origin families
through sending remittances and affecting demographic characteristics of members in the
household. It is so useful for examining the impacts of migration on children’s welfare. In
reality, education investment for children occupies a big part of expenditure amount in a
household. So, the matter is whether migration contributes to school enrollment of
children or not and how children in migrant household will differ with no migrant
household’s children. From that, need deeper research about whether gender of migrant
and time of migrant living in household can impact directly to school enrollment. Some
suggestions can be concluded in reality which need to be confirmed are: (1) Migrant help
children have more school enrollment; (2) if household has female migrant, the level of
school enrollment of children is better than household having male migrant. Two issues,
school enrollment and child work, of course, are interconnected closely. When migration
affects to children’s school enrollment, it will affect to child work also. Besides that, there
were many reports and papers such as Cuong (2008), Pfau and Long (2006) research

about migration and remittance before. Meanwhile impact of migration and migrant’s
gender on children’s school enrollment and child work in Vietnam has not been studied
and need more papers having the deep view about this aspect.
By applying data of Vietnam household living standard survey (VHLSS) 2010, this
paper is expected to use a suitable regression to investigate the impacts of migration and
migrant’s gender on children’s school enrollment and child work in Viet Nam for that
time clearly. After that, a main key factor of migrant which wasn’t recommended in the
similar previous research, that is time of migrant spending in household will be used to

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find out how migrant’s monitor effect children’s welfare. Finally, it hopes that the results
of research will be helpful for migration policy.
1.2. Research Objectives
The aiming objectives of this research are to meet the following objectives:
a) To examine the impacts of migration and migrant’s gender on children’s school
enrollment and child work
b) To make recommendations for government about the policies and programs
which tend to promote the effectiveness of migration in children development
as well as human capital investment.
1.3. Research question
The research will try to address some questions like that:
a) How do migration and migrant’s gender significantly affect children’s school
enrollment?
b) How do migration and migrant’s gender significantly affect child work?
1.4. Research scope
As we know, in rural areas most of the family face to the poor and not sure to
guarantee a complete life. Clearly, the impact level of migration mostly happens strongly
in rural areas where economic situation play a key important role in outcome of people.

Therefore, the research focuses on impact of migration and migrant’s gender on
children’s welfare in rural areas in 2010. It aims to rural-urban and rural-aboard migration
flow.
1.5. Structure of the research
This research will be classified into 6 main parts. The first part introduces overview
about the research, raising the problem and objectives as well as scope of the research.
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The second part is the literature is the solid basis theory and previous empirical
experience before relating to research. The third part shows methodology, estimated
equation in the research. It also talks about the data which used for methodology. The
next part is to know how social-economic characteristic of Vietnam impact on migration
and overview of migration case in Vietnam. The fifth part show the result of model after
running the regression, and explain the result appear in the model. The final part is
conclusion and recommendation, limitation need to take experience in the research.

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CHAPTER 2: LITERATURE REVIEW
2.1.

Definition of key concept

Children: United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child considers children as
a human being under 18 years old. Even in some definitions, child includes the fetus and
the unborn. It is important to note that in most paper, the author will define children by
their own purpose by disaggregating children group into specified group. For the purpose
of this research relating to school and labor supply of child so children which is

concerned in the thesis is limited schooling ages from 6 to 18 years old child. This
definition will be used throughout the paper.
Migration: General familiar definition of migration is the movement of human from
one place to another. According to International Organization for Migration, there is not
the universally definition exists. The term migrant can be applied for personal, family
moving to another place for a better life without intervention of external forces. Migration
can be permanent, if that person will never return to his/her origin places, or for a long
term he/she move to other places and live in that destination over at least 12 months. A
short term migrant is the person who moves to other place at least 3 months but less than
1 year. Under definitions, traveler in short term or business persons will not be considered
as migrant. However, migrant includes certain kinds of short-term migrant such as
seasonal worker, farm-worker. In the context of this paper, migrants are the people who
work in another place over 6 last months and it doesn’t count permanent migrants who
have permanent residence in other places different from origin.
2.2.

Theoretical literature

2.2.1. Lewis model (1954)
In Lewis’s theory, traditional agriculture and industrial sector exists simultaneously.
Because of the disparity between two sectors, if evaluate the productivity and human
5


resource of each sector, traditional agriculture which has surplus labor and low
productivity will move in to industrial sector which has high productivity and high
technology level. Lewis shows that 30% of income difference between two sectors will
make the labor move to the higher income. For a long time, the gap of income between
them is lower, the wage in agricultural sector will equal to the wage of industrial sector.
At that time the attractiveness to promote the movement will be disappear.

Although, theory of Lewis is considered as the basis model of development but it was
also criticized by other economists. Lewis thought that the relationship of reinvestment or
capital accumulation and number of jobs is positive. Clearly, when investing to the
technology, the labor force will be reduced. Moreover, Lewis shows the supply of labor in
agriculture is elastic and limitless. According to Todaro (2003), surplus of labor in rural is
limited and quite small. Thirdly, Lewis assumed that in the industrial sectors, wage will
be constant instead of increase over time. In addition, diminishing return of industrial
sector need to be argued, in while, in real the return of industrial sector also increase in
some specific fields.
2.2.2. The push pull theory of migration (1966)
Push pull theory (Lee, 1966) is neoclassical theory which explains why people move
for rural-rural, rural- urban, urban-urban and international migration. It emphasizes the
trends of people move from low to high income area or from densely to sparsely
population area or because of fluctuation of business cycle.
Decision to migrate and process of migration can be summarized by 4 main factors:
Characteristics of origin, characteristics of destination, intervening obstacles (cost, border,
etc…) and nature of people. Among them we separate it into two kind of factor, push
factors include demographic grow low living standards, people lack of conditions to have
a better life such as economic opportunities, political repression, infrastructure, access to
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clean water, sanitation, etc (in the origin area)...Pull factors include demand of labor, land,
economic opportunities, political freedom, good infrastructure in the destination and so on
(in the destination). A potential migrant will consider the balance of all the attractive and
interactive factors and attractive factors of destination along with difficulties of
intervening obstacle and nature of human to decide migration.
Some weak-points of theory could be given such as it couldn’t say why the reason to
move. It judged that economic growth is the main reason for people moving and unable to
predict the movement in the future. It also didn’t account the fact that some people have

less ability to have migrating decision, people also differ in their ability to act of
migrating decision although they want to migrate.
2.2.3.

Todaro model (Todaro, 1969)

Corresponding to macroeconomic theory is microeconomic, Todaro model is
considered as a predecessor of theory for rural migration, Todaro model is the basic
theory not only for internal migration but also international migration because of valuable
cores. Todaro explained that the persistent of internal migration is to face the
unemployment in the destination places. The existence of underemployment and
unemployment of urban areas affects the probability of rural migration when they have
difficulties in finding a job over there. In contrast to other previous paper when
considering labor transfer process include one- stage, Todaro showed that this process
include two-stage. First stage is the movement of unskilled rural worker to urban areas
and spend time in one “urban traditional” sectors. The second-stage is the phenomenon
when there is the permanent movement in modern sector jobs.
Although Todaro only concerned about internal migration but income hypothesis is
also relevant with international migration. The interdependence of mixing effect from
industrial expansion, productivity growth, differential in earning capacity of urban versus
7


rural activities leads to the migration and occupational distribution in urban places. When
evaluating the determinant of urban labor supply it needs to concern about the ruralurban expected income. Differential income will be adjusted so unemployment rate will
be a problem with urban supply when rural worker migrate to find a job with expected
income. From that it said that raising income by creation employment in rural area
s will help reducing out-migration in rural areas. So the policy which government can
support is development programs make rural life more attractive. One more important
matter affect the decision making of migrant is the balance between the risks and the

probabilities of unemployed in one period with certain wage and the opportunities to have
a permanent job. It also depends on the behavioral and spirit of migrant who prefer which
fundamental role among them.
2.2.4.

Chain migration theory

Chain migration is the relationship between the previous migrants and current
migrants through the movement of migrant from this place to other place follows previous
migrants. Previous migrants will establish the transportation, accommodation,
information…so make it convenient for migrant to migrate. Follows migrants path
therefore, knowledge of destination increase, obstacles decrease so attractiveness of
destination increase. Lee’s (1966) argued that migration facilitates information of
destination back to origin. Moreover, Böcker (1994) emphasized migration network
reduce the risks as well as material and psychological cost for next migrants.
Chain migration and the expectation of migration may increase illegal immigration or
migrant will find destination not as attractive as expected. On the other hand, this theory
doesn’t offer the insight into the mechanism which migration network can lead to weaken
migration system. It also didn’t indicate that counteract of external and internal processes
lead to increase migration.
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To evaluate the influence of any economic-social factors or program of the
government on standard living of individuals, household, communities, a familiar method
is impact evaluation. The core method of impact evaluation which Khandker et al (2010)
concerned in his research was to choose a good comparison group with treatment group.
Two groups have the similar characteristics but the difference is the intervention elements
of treatment group and comparison group. The below equation represents a direct effect
of T on the program Y in context subject i with or without intervention:

Y_i= * X_i+ * T_i +ε_i
Where T is the dummy variable with the value 1 if subject with intervention, 0 if
subject without intervention
X: the observed characteristics of subject and other characteristics affect subject i.
ε: Error term representing unobserved characteristics which affect Y.
The accuracy of impact evaluation depends on the reasonable assumptions as well as
exogenous factors. Khandker et al(2010) also represented some various economics
methods to address selection bias and calculating the effect of interventions.
2.2.4.1. Randomized evaluation method
Randomized evaluation identifies a group that has the same observed characteristics
and assigning randomly interference to evaluate the effectiveness of one project or
program. Randomized evaluation method is used to address an array of well-known bias.
It can resolve the selection problem that plagues treatment effect estimates. Researcher is
allowed to design behavioral parameters that are difficult to estimate by other methods.
The results of randomized evaluation are transparent and typically and highly credible to
policymaker. But randomized evaluation is quite rare because the way to collect data
costly including expensive and take much time. Moreover, it have little or no external
9


validity, usually estimated impacts are local. Randomized evaluation also prone to biases
so misleading inference, and feasible in practice.
2.2.4.2. Propensity score matching methods (PSM)
Propensity score matching estimates an average treatment from observable data and
help to match treatment with similar control units observationally. So to compare the
intervention effects between treatment and control group which bases on the observed
characteristics. The key advantage of PSM is to use linear combination of covariates for a
single score, so it can balance treatment and control group on a large number of covariates
without losing a large number of observations. But PSM only counts observable
covariates only, all factors affect treatment but they can’t be observable, can’t be

mentioned in the method. Another issue is that PSM requires large sample so maybe
overlap between treatment and control group. From that, biases may be created after
matching because of missing unobservable variables and overlapping data. PSM has
another disadvantage when assuming no unobserved differences and this is often
implausible.
2.2.4.3. Difference- in-Differences or double difference methods (DID)
Difference-in-Difference examines the effect of intervention of program by taking out
the different between control and treatment group before and after intervening. DID is
easy to calculate standard errors by control variables which may reduce the residual
variance. DID eliminates fixed difference not related to treatment and can study treatment
with different treatment intensity. But DID method assume that the unobserved
heterogeneity does not change in time but clearly when the trend change, it will make
biased for the result. In case unknown characteristics make control and treatment group
react differently. DID will easily overestimate or underestimate the true effect.

10


Furthermore, DID require data which have 2 pre-intervention periods of data. The lack of
data can be applied DID method.
2.2.4.4. Instrumental variables ( IVs) methods
Instrumental variables method proves its effectiveness and flexibility when allowing
the selection bias on unobserved characteristics vary over time. It can correct the bias
through found instruments which impact on participation status but no relationship with
unobserved characteristics. IVs can control endogenous in the model effectively, thus it is
usually used to address the problem of omitted variable bias, unobservable variable, errors
in variables or measurement errors of endogenous variable by permitting them remain in
the error term. But IVs can be deal with some problems when instrument correlate with
errors term, lead to inconsistence. More popularly, authors usually have to face with weak
instruments and many confounders which results in imprecise and biased result. Due to

the first-stage equation, that instrument shows the weak predicting ability. In the secondstate, predict the outcome exactly is limited. So the most important problem of IVs is how
to choose the good and suitable instrument variables
2.2.4.5. Regression discontinuity (RD) design and pipeline method
Regression discontinuity which is extent from IVs accounts for selection or
participation on observed and unobserved characteristics. Then, compare participant and
non-participant groups which base on the closed location around criteria. It can yield an
unbiased estimate of treatment at the discontinuity. RD also takes advantage when
assigning the benefit as criteria for design of social policy. But RD only looks at subgroup of sample and assignment rule, in practice, often not implemented strictly. When
estimating at the discontinuity, fewer observations exist to ensure not bias in the results.
Pipeline comparison uses variation in the timing of program’s implementation to
establish eligible comparison groups who is suitable to join the program but not receiving
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the intervention. Pipeline comparison can combine RD if treatment is located on the basis
of exogenous characteristics.
In this research, I will use instrumental variable method because of endogeneity
appearing in model. IVs will solve the bias which is caused by endogenous variable by
finding the instrument variables which associate with participation but no relationship
with unobserved characteristics. IVs method allows us to count for observed and
unobserved heterogeneity as well as ensure the result which is not affected by timevariant situation. The bias of result will be solved completely when comparing to other
methods.
2.3. Empirical literature
There has been not any quantitative research about the impact of migration and
gender matters on child’s welfare in Vietnam. But in the world, for years, many theories
and empirical studies which were relevant to this impact.
One paper published to quantify the impact of remittances upon school enrollment
was a study of Cox-Edwards and Ureta (2003) on the risk of school dropout. The authors
used cross-sectional data from Encuesta de Hogares de Propósitos Multiples 1997 and
estimated how remittances influence Salvadorian households’ educational. The authors

found out, via income effect, remittance relieve the budget constraints, it makes good
condition for the household afford and allows children spend more time in school. The
result is that remittances reduce significantly the dropout aged 6 to 24. To be consistent
with dropout decrease, authors expect the right thing is that remittances contribute
positively to school enrollment. However, one of concerns becoming the limitation of this
paper is that the authors didn’t address potential sample selectivity issues and endogeneity
of remittances.

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Indeed, with the same hypothesis, Hanson and Woodruff (2003) used Mexico’s 2000
Census data and recognized that there was the complex interaction between remittances
and migration. Remittances and school enrollment have the positive relationship. In
Mexico, in migrant family, children (from 10 to 15 year-olds) complete more grades in
school than others. But the authors also noted that negative labor shocks which affected to
parents would make the children have to spend more time to work instead of spending
their time in the school. It implied that there was the spurious negative relationship
between migration and children schooling enrollment. One concern is to overcome the
limitation some previous paper, the authors knew to control the endogeneity of
remittances by using IV with historical migration rates and household characteristics
instrument.
Acosta (2006) realized that remittances can affect child outcome and labor supply in
El Savador, the key outcomes for the growth of developing country. The paper proved
that the estimating of remittance was taken into account for selection and endogeneity
problem which different from estimates presented in previous studies. To solve relating
problem, Acosta (2006) used Propensity score matching and instrumental variable method
to run regression, instrument variable which was used in the paper is migration network
and household migration history (number of international migrants who returns two or
more one year ago) for remittance receipt. The result showed that remittance had positive

relationship with school enrollment but not for all range of age, only for age from 11-14
(boys) and 11-17 (girls) year old. Moreover, negative side of remittance is to increase of
child work for wage. However, concerning adult labor supply, the robust result showed
that female labor supply is lower in recipients of remittance but higher with male labor
supply.
Mansuri (2006) analyzed the relationship of economic migration undertaken by men
and it showed that children in migrant’s household attain more time in school and remain
13


in school with more accumulating years comparing to non-migrant household. Mansuri
(2006) used two strategies to address the endogeneity, the first strategy is to use
instrument variables, the second strategy is to confine attention to migrant household and
to use information on the year of initial migration to exploit the fact which affect to
children school enrollment. With instrument variables, the paper found two instruments,
one is migration network with a level village and another is the number of male adult in
household with household level. Discrimination happened in Pakistan because girls in
migrant household headed by female were more likely to drop out of school than boys.
Moreover, both boys and girls in migrant household headed by female tend to work more
than migrant household headed by male. Education in Pakistan depended much on
income flows in the household and traditionally structure of household and social culture.
On differential impact of gender on wage income, expenditure and production of
migrant-sending household, Pfeiffer and Taylor (2008) used probit-method and control
potential endogeneity by using historical migration gender as instrumental variable. They
saw that impacts of migrant left behind for sending household according to the genders.
Male migration was more likely to engage production activities than female migration.
That was explained like the role of female migration in household production activities,
they only participate in a little of work in a subset of production activities. On the other
hand, female migration had the negative relationship with education, female migration
decrease the investment in education. However, male migration had negative impact. This

was interpreted that the lack of monitor of female migration on schooling investment or
the signal from international migrant about the low return of low skilled migrant.
By contrast, migration can affect school enrollment negatively, one typical example,
McKenzie and Rapoport (2007) recognized that migration and school enrollment of 16 to
18 year olds girls and 12 to 18 year olds boys in Mexico have significant negative
relationship. The argument of the authors is that migration affect school enrollment via
14


three ways: the income effect brought by remittances, direct effect of adult migration that
requires more demand on child work, indirect effect of incentives to invest for education.
One specific thing of migration in Mexico is that children in migrant household likely to
self migrate to US via illegal ways. In this context, children in migrant household are
unlikely better than children in non migrant household. Once remittance became essential
for survival of population in Mexico, it generated the dependency of household to
remittances for household members who left behind. Change in consumption, reduce
labor supply, enjoy more time in relax and more need of remittance in the future. The
absent of adults in the household may increase the child’s responsibilities in the
household, greater demand for older children to run and support the family. It makes
difficult to attend school like other normal children.
To overcome some limitations in previous paper about El Savador, by using panel
data and controlling household fixed effect method, Acosta (2011) also did another
research and it found that female migration tend to reduce the child work in domestic and
non-domestic. But it was not true for male migrant whom seemed to stimulate the child
work in domestic labor. In addition, male migration seemed not to affect to school
enrollment of child while female migration had the inverse impact when reducing the
child school enrollment. The reason for the negative impact of female migration on school
enrollment maybe because of the absent of monitoring of female in managing funds or
difference in the use of remittances by gender of the recipient person or the child-adult
labor substitution.

According to Nguyen T, and Purnamasari R. (2011), the impact of international
migration on sending household was affected a lot by migrant’s gender in context of
Indonesia. They used Family Life survey from 1993 to 2007 and instrumental variable
method for regression the result. As the whole, household with only female migrant
reduced child work. Surprisingly, household with some male migrants household seemed
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