Curse of low-skilled emigration on human capital formation: Evidence from the migration surge of the 2000s

Sam Hak Kan Tang, Yichen Wang and Yong Wang

World Development, 2025, vol. 189, issue C

Abstract: Low-skilled emigration is generally construed as benign and even beneficial for the migrant-sending countries. However, it can also lead to a disincentive effect on human capital formation in the source countries. Using a panel bilateral migration dataset that captures the surge of low-skill migrants in OECD countries in the 2000s, we study how low-skilled emigration affects human capital formation in the migrant-sending countries. We find that the expected returns to low-skilled emigration reduce long-run human capital formation as measured by the average years of schooling and the human capital index of the migrant-sending countries in the subsequent decade. This negative effect on overall human capital formation is manifested through a substantial reduction in tertiary educational attainment, which is both statistically significant and robust to various sensitivity tests and alternative model specifications. Additionally, there is some evidence of a positive association between the expected returns to low-skilled emigration and secondary educational attainment in the subsequent decade. An important qualification is that only middle- and high-income countries are strongly affected by low-skilled emigration, while low-income countries show little to no disincentive effect.

Keywords: Human capital formation; Migration; Low-skilled emigration; High-skilled emigration; Developing countries (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: F22 I21 I25 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2025
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:wdevel:v:189:y:2025:i:c:s0305750x25000142

DOI: 10.1016/j.worlddev.2025.106931

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