Negative Effect of Past Migration Experience on Education Investment: Evidence from Tajikistan

Abstract

This paper empirically examines the effect of past migration experience on investment in children's education as well as the effect of current migration. While migration brings remittances and allows households to invest in education, parents with migration experience would have little incentive to invest in education if the experience facilitates future migration of children and migrants' wages depend little on education. Past migration could discourage education investment through the latter effect. Using data from Tajikistan, this paper estimates the effects of past and current migration on education expenditure and enrollment. The results show that, although current migration raises education investment, past migration experience reduces it. Specifically, for compulsory education, the negative effect of past migration is observed only for non-poor households while the positive effect of current migration is observed only for poor households. For non-compulsory education, only the negative effect of past migration is observed. Migration can be an obstacle for development of migrant-sending countries in the long term.

Keywords: Education investment, labor migration, remittances, Tajikistan

JEL Classification: F24, I25, O15