Does the Effect of Internal Migration on Skills Depend on the Age at Migration? Evidence from Four Developing Countries

Maria Franco Gavonel , University of Oxford

Previous studies in developed countries have looked at the age at migration as an element that affects the impact of international migration on educational attainment. However, little is known about the role of age on the effect of internal migration on educational achievement. In this article, I posit that migration can be seen not only as a productivity shifter in the production function of cognitive and psychosocial skills, but also, and more importantly, as an input in itself since it may have a direct effect on skills. In order to test this, I use household fixed effects and Two-Stage Least Squares estimation exploiting novel data on sibling pairs during childhood and adolescence in Ethiopia, India, Peru, and Vietnam. I find suggestive evidence that the direct effect of age at migration on cognitive skills is negative, which supports the claim that sensitive periods for migration exist at earlier ages. However, results for psychosocial skills are more mixed.

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 Presented in Session P3. Poster Session Migration, Economics, Environment, Methods, History and Policy