Following your lead: Migration networks and immigrants' education decisions

Ivette Contreras

World Development, 2023, vol. 170, issue C

Abstract: This paper estimates the effect of immigrant networks on the education of school-age Salvadoran immigrants in the United States. I construct an instrument for the network size in the U.S. using previous settlement patterns and municipality-level push factors in El Salvador such as crime, agricultural land use, and economic development. I find that Salvadoran immigrants lose half a year of education when their network size exogenously increases by 1 standard deviation (4.7% decrease). Causal links between the education decisions of immigrants and their network may partly explain the low level of education attained by new young immigrants. Immigrants with more education may assimilate better into their host countries and contribute to their economies.

Keywords: Immigration; Youth; Education; Assimilation (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: F22 I25 O15 R23 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2023
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:wdevel:v:170:y:2023:i:c:s0305750x23001389

DOI: 10.1016/j.worlddev.2023.106320

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