Volume 33 - Article 27 | Pages 765–800
New perspective on youth migration: Motives and family investment patterns
Abstract
Background: Migration research commonly assumes that youth migrate as dependent family members or are motivated by current labor opportunities and immediate financial returns. These perspectives ignore how migration experiences, specifically motives and remittance behaviors, are unique to youth.
Objective: This study investigates internal migration among the Haitian youth, aged 10-24. The study compares characteristics of youth who migrate with education and labor motives and determines characteristics associated with family financial support to youth migrants.
Methods: The data are from the 2009 Haiti Youth Survey. Discrete-time event history analysis is used to model characteristics associated with education and labor migration. A two-stage Heckman probit model is used to determine characteristics associated with family financial support for two different samples of youth migrants.
Results: Both education and labor migration become more common with increasing age. Education migration is more common among youth born outside the capital and those first enrolled in school on time. Labor migration differs little by region of birth, and is associated with late school enrollment. Moreover, rather than sending remittances home, many youth migrants continue to receive financial support from their parents. Provision of financial support to youth migrants is associated with current school enrollment. Female youth are more likely to be migrants, and less commonly receive support from their household of origin.
Conclusions: Results illustrate that youth migration motives and remittance behaviors differ from those of adults, and many households of origin continue to invest in the human capital of youth migrants. Education migration may diversify household risk over an extended time horizon.
Contribution: *
Author's Affiliation
- Jessica Heckert - International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI), United States of America EMAIL
Other articles by the same author/authors in Demographic Research
Does the orphan disadvantage "spill over"? An analysis of whether living in an area with a higher concentration of orphans is associated with children’s school enrollment in sub-Saharan Africa
Volume 28 - Article 40
Most recent similar articles in Demographic Research
A multidimensional global migration model for use in cohort-component population projections
Volume 51 - Article 11
| Keywords:
age dependency,
education,
international migration,
migration,
modelling,
population projection,
projections
Are highly educated partners really more gender egalitarian? A couple-level analysis of social class differentials in attitudes and behaviors
Volume 50 - Article 34
| Keywords:
attitudes,
couple analysis,
education,
educational level,
gender,
gender roles,
housework,
social class differentials
The importance of education for understanding variability of dementia onset in the United States
Volume 50 - Article 26
| Keywords:
dementia,
education,
lifespan variability,
modal age,
morbidity compression
Measuring the educational gradient of period fertility in 28 European countries: A new approach based on parity-specific fertility estimates
Volume 49 - Article 34
| Keywords:
education,
Europe,
period fertility,
quantum,
tempo,
total fertility rate (TFR)
A Bayesian model for the reconstruction of education- and age-specific fertility rates: An application to African and Latin American countries
Volume 49 - Article 31
| Keywords:
age,
Bayesian analysis,
education,
fertility estimation,
fertility rates
Cited References: 52
Download to Citation Manager
PubMed
Google Scholar