Protecting the Welfare of Children and its Causal Effect on Limiting Mother's Labour Migration
| Date | 01 October 2016 |
| Published date | 01 October 2016 |
| Author | Bilesha Weeraratne |
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1111/imig.12263 |
Protecting the Welfare of Children and its
Causal Effect on Limiting Mother’s Labour
Migration
Bilesha Weeraratne*
ABSTRACT
In June 2013 Sri Lanka introduced a new policy, the Family Background Report (FBR), to
restrict mothers migrating for domestic work. This article performs an impact evaluation of the
FBR using monthly departure statistics of female migrant workers from January 2012 to
December 2014 in a difference-in-difference methodology. The identification is based on the
inter-temporal variation between the treatment and control groups. As anticipated, the FBR has
a negative causal effect on female departures for foreign employment in the range of 449–812
departures per month. The findings are robust to placebo and sensitivity tests. Although suc-
cessful in restricting females migrating for domestic work, this policy promotes migration out-
side the institutional framework of Sri Lanka and thereby increases their vulnerability at
destination. For the policy initiative to be effective, its myopic focus has to be transformed
into a long-term plan to support those deterred from migrating.
MOTIVATION
Labour migration involves a trade-off between its costs and benefits. This trade-off is very acute
for female migrants due to their influential position in the family and their vulnerability in society.
In recent years, there has been extensive focus in Sri Lanka on minimizing the social cost of migra-
tion, especially in terms of the welfare of the children left behind. Despite the absence of national
level statistics on children of migrants, many surveys find that most female migrants are in the age
groups that have dependent children (ILO, 2013; Pinto-Jayawardena, 2006). Amidst positive impli-
cations of mother’s migration (Arunatilake, 2010; De and Ratha, 2012; Perera and Jampaklay,
2011; Senaratna, 2012) her absence also leads to multifaceted negative implications.
One directive aimed at reducing the adverse implications on children left behind in Sri Lanka is
Circular 13/2013 of June 2013 and its revision in January 2014 regarding the Family Background
Report (FBR). According to the FBR, females with children under the age of 5 years are restricted
from migrating as they are not “recommended”for foreign employment, while females with chil-
dren above 5 years will only be recommended for migration if satisfactory alternative care arrange-
ments are in place to ensure the protection of children. Such restrictions to female labour migration
would have numerous consequences on the welfare of children and families left behind, household
income, and the nexus between gender and development, in Sri Lanka’s migration scenario where
females account for over a third (37%) of departures and remittances (USD 7 billion or nearly 10%
of GDP) make a significant contribution for development (CBSL, 2014). This article evaluates the
* Institute of Policy Studies of Sri Lanka
doi: 10.1111/imig.12263
©2016 The Author
International Migration ©2016 IOM
International Migration Vol. 54 (5) 2016
ISSN 0020-7985Published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd.
causal effect of the FBR on departure of female labour migrants. The analysis adopts a Difference-
in-difference methodology using monthly departure statistics for the years 2012 to 2014 from the
Sri Lanka Bureau of Foreign Employment (SLBFE).
The remainder of this article is organized as follows. The next section provides the background
about female migration from Sri Lanka and about the FBR requirement. The section on Literature,
reviews existing work dealing with the social cost of migration on children left behind and fol-
lowed by the controversial debate about the welfare of children and the rights of migrant mothers.
The subsequent sections describe the data used, the methodology adopted and the underlying
assumptions of the analysis. The section on Difference-in-Difference results discusses the impact
estimates of FBR on departures, followed by placebo test findings in the next section. The emer-
ging scenario of bypassing the FBR restriction is discussed before the article is concluded with a
summary, recap and recommendation in the Conclusion section.
BACKGROUND
In 1977, with the introduction of the open market policies, migration from Sri Lanka for foreign
employment became more organized and formalized. In this post-1977 phase, females accounted
for a majority of migrant workers. Until 2008 females accounted for a larger share of migrants (see
first panel of Figure 1). The peak years for female labour migration were 1993 and 1997, where
females accounted for 75 per cent of migrants. As indicated in the dashed vertical line in 2012 –
the year prior to the introduction of the FBR –the share of female migration had picked up to 49
per cent after a drop to 45 per cent in 2010. Similarly, compared to 2011, in 2012 (indicated by
FIGURE 1
LABOUR MIGRATION FROM SRI LANKA –1986–2014
20 40 60 80
% of departures
1984 1989 1994 1999 2004 2009 2014
Female Male
Panel 1
020 40 60 80
% of departures
1995 2000 2005 2010 2015
Skilled Unskilled
Housemaids Other
Panel 2
Source: Author’s illustration based on CBSL (various years) data.
60 Weeraratne
©2016 The Author. International Migration ©2016 IOM
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