International Migration and Schooling as Alternative Means of Social Mobility in Mexico

Carla Pederzini, Universidad Iberoamericana
Liliana Meza, Universidad Iberoamericana

Our hypothesis states that the migration experience at the household and the community level can change family preferences, increasing the value of migration as a more efficient means for family social mobility, and decreasing the value attributed to formal education. In this case, the relaxation of monetary constraints attributed to remittances may not increase the amounts families spend in schooling, and can even decrease them as families invest more in trying to get another member into the international labor market. Using the National Survey of Mexican Rural Households (ENHRUM), this paper tries to understand the role migration and remittances play in the schooling decisions of rural households. We analyze two different dimensions of education: school attendance and schooling years, for two different groups of population classified by gender: 11 to 15 and 16 to 19 years old. Our results show strong gender effects of household migration experience on schooling