REMITTANCES AND MIGRATION. The findings come too late to be relevant to the now-stalled immigration reform push here in the U.S., but the news is still important, particularly to some European countries that may have similar efforts on the horizon: Women, and especially girls, are the greatest beneficiaries of remittances sent home by some 200 million migrants worldwide, according to a massive new study. Via Le Monde, revenues that traverse borders are notoriously difficult to track, but a report (PDF) released yesterday by the World Bank has attempted to study their impact nonetheless. Investigating several global migration hotspots, including Southeast Asia, North Africa, and Latin America, the study finds overall that children from migrant families are more likely to attend school, stay in school, and earn higher grades; girls from migrant households complete almost two years more than girls from non-migrant households, whereas boys complete an average of one additional year. The authors of the study note that "resources allocated to daughters tend to be marginal resources, whereas those allocated to boys tend to be intramarginal and are therefore less sensitive to income fluctuations. Consequently, the positive income impact of migration and remittances on daughters' education and labor outcomes is typically much larger than that for boys."
Researchers point to a decrease in fertility rates that correlates along the same lines, particularly in migrant families in Middle Eastern and Asian countries, like Pakistan and Turkey, noting that "most recent migration has been from high-birth to low-birth countries" and that "migrants can affect their home countries' views ... because they typically adopt ideas and behaviors prevailing in the destination countries and transmit them to their countries of origin." Championing this increased gender equality and educational attainment, the correlation between lower birthrates and lower poverty rates, and the influence of developed country's values on those of the developing country, the report offers a revelatory glimpse at the profound effects that immigration reform, done right, could promote.
--Elisabeth Zerofsky
