Educational Selectivity of Migrants and Current School Enrollment in Four Sub-Saharan African Countries

Sophia Chae, Guttmacher Institute
Jennifer E. Glick, Arizona State University

Migration may impact children in sending households but the direction and consistency of the association between migration and children’s schooling remains unclear. Taking advantage of comparable data across four settings of labor migration in Africa, this paper addresses the extent to which children’s school enrollment is higher in households engaged in labor migration than in non-migrant households. We hypothesize that educational selection into migration may explain differential outcomes among children in migrant sending households. The results suggest that higher school enrollment in migrant sending households is related to the educational selectivity of migrants. Children in Burkina Faso, Kenya, and Senegal who live in households where migrants are positively selected are more likely to be enrolled in school than their peers in non-migrant households. Nigeria is the only country where no association exists between educational selectivity of migrants and current school enrollment.