Father's Labour Migration and Children's School Discontinuation in Rural Mozambique
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1111/imig.12349 |
| Date | 01 August 2017 |
| Author | Victor Agadjanian,Scott T. Yabiku |
| Published date | 01 August 2017 |
Father’s Labour Migration and Children’s
School Discontinuation in Rural Mozambique
Scott T. Yabiku* and Victor Agadjanian**
ABSTRACT
We examine how the discontinuation of schooling among left-behind children is related to
multiple dimensions of male labour migration: the accumulation of migration experience, the
timing of these migration experiences in the child’s life course, and the economic success of
the migration. Our setting is rural southern Mozambique, an impoverished area with massive
male labour out-migration. Results show that fathers’economically successful labour migration
is more beneficial for children’s schooling than unsuccessful migration or non-migration. There
are large differences, however, by gender: compared with sons of non-migrants, sons of
migrant fathers (regardless of migration success) have lower rates of school discontinuation,
while daughters of migrant fathers have rates of school discontinuation like those of daughters
of non-migrants. Furthermore, accumulated labour migration across the child’s life course is
beneficial for boys’schooling, but not girls’. Remittances sent in the past year reduce the rate
of discontinuation for sons, but not daughters.
INTRODUCTION
Labour migration of a family member has large and diverse consequences for those who remain
behind. In a setting of widespread male labour migration in rural southern Mozambique, this migra-
tion has been shown to impact various family outcomes, such as non-migrating women’s autonomy
(Yabiku, Agadjanian, and Sevoyan, 2011), their fertility (Agadjanian, Yabiku, and Cau, 2011),
child mortality (Yabiku, Agadjanian, and Cau, 2012), and HIV risks (Agadjanian, Arnaldo, and
Cau, 2011). Typically, research on migration compares migrants with non-migrants and makes
comparisons based on current migration status. Male labour migrants, however, are a heterogeneous
group: depending on their skills, networks, choices, and available opportunities, some migrants are
economically more successful than others. Importantly, from the standpoint of the family in the
sending area, successful migrants are not just those who command high incomes and not even
those who send remittances. Migration is also seen by non-migrating family members as successful
if migrants do not establish new families or partnerships in the receiving area, and if their absence
does not disrupt the ability of the left-behind family to maintain itself economically and socially.
Non-migrants are also heterogeneous: some have never migrated, while other have migrated
previously but have returned to their home community. Furthermore, there is heterogeneity in the
timing of migration –at what stages of the migrant’s and his household members’lives migration
occurs –as well as in the duration of migration. In sum, simple assessments of the current status
may hide important variation in migration timing, experiences, and outcomes.
* Pennsylvania State University
** University of Kansas
doi: 10.1111/imig.12349
©2017 The Authors
International Migration ©2017 IOM
International Migration Vol. 55 (4) 2017
ISS N 00 20- 7985 Published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd.
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