For Children's Sake: Intergenerational Altruism and Parental Migration Intentions

Annalisa Frigo, Elisabetta Lodigiani () and Sara Salomone ()
Additional contact information
Elisabetta Lodigiani: University of Padua, Department of Economics and Management and LdA
Sara Salomone: UGent and UNU-CRIS

No 2021030, LIDAM Discussion Papers IRES from Université catholique de Louvain, Institut de Recherches Economiques et Sociales (IRES)

Abstract: While economic research has extensively studied the consequences of migration on children, we advance that having (or intention to have) ospring may constitute a reason to move per se. Exploiting individual-level data, this paper investigates to what extent the perceived lack of child well-being fosters parental migration intentions. Taking advantage of a large survey, the Gallup World Poll, which covers 23 Latin American and Caribbean countries between the years 2009 and 2015, we show that the perception of poor opportunities for children in one's own country is an important push factor in the parental intention to migrate internationally, besides the other individual determinants of the decision to move abroad. The magnitude and robustness of the estimate are examined by running a battery of tests. Furthermore, with the goal of tackling the potential endogeneity issues, for a subset of countries, we exploit the region of residence and the date of the interview of respondents and we instrument individual perceptions of child well-being with the timing and location of Catholic clergy scandals concerning the sexual abuse of minors.

Keywords: International Migration; Intergenerational Altruism (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: D64 F22 J13 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2021-12-23
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-mig
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:ctl:louvir:2021030

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