Schooling Forsaken: Education and Migration

Ilhom Abdulloev, Gil Epstein and Ira Gang

No 641, GLO Discussion Paper Series from Global Labor Organization (GLO)

Abstract: We examine the phenomenon of forsaken schooling resulting from opportunities abroad. The brain-drain/gain literature takes as its starting point the migration of educated/professional labor from poor origin countries to richer host countries. While high-skilled emigration is troubling, even more so is that many international migrants accept low-skilled positions in host countries. Their willingness to do so arises from very large host-home earnings differentials. At home this can lead to reduced educational investment as people forgo schooling because of opportunities to migrate to high paying low-skilled jobs. This suggests possible time-inconsistencies between short-run economic gains from migration and negative long-term effects from missing human-capital investment. We analyze data from Tajikistan, where approximately one-third of the labor force works outside of the country. Our empirical results establish circumstances under forsaken schooling occurs, leaving trade-offs that policymakers’ need consider.

Keywords: migration; traps; poverty; inequality; education; skill (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: F22 I24 O15 P46 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2020
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (4)

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Related works:
Working Paper: Schooling Forsaken: Education and Migration (2019)
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:zbw:glodps:641

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