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Emigration’s Heterogeneous Impact on Children’s Wellbeing in Punjab, Pakistan

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Abstract

We investigate the impact of the migration of a household member who is potentially a caregiver on child health and schooling outcomes in Pakistan. We use micro-level cross-sectional data on more than 600,000 children from multiple rounds of the UN’s Multiple Indicator Cluster Survey (MICS) dataset from 2008–2018 for Punjab province. We implement a new instrumental variable to address the endogeneity of the migration decision, comprising a triple interaction of nighttime light intensity of the major destination countries, historic migration rates at the district level, and the number of adult males in a household. The absence of the migrating member of the household negatively (positively) affects younger (older) children: the short-term nutritional status of children under age five is harmed, while children aged 5–17 are more likely to be enrolled in school. These results are robust to the inclusion of controls for mother, child, and household characteristics, in addition to location and survey year fixed effects. The negative impact on nutritional status for children under five years is smaller for boys in urban areas, in wealthier households, and in households with more educated mothers. However, the positive impact of migration on schooling outcomes is driven by girls, families in rural areas, and wealthier households.

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Data Availability

The data can be made available by the corresponding author upon request.

Notes

  1. Although child’s wellbeing is a more complex multidimensional aspect that comprise of both self-assessed and externally assessed outcomes. The data source that we use for our analysis only collects consistent information in all rounds of MICS on only two domains of externally assessed outcomes of child’s wellbeing, i.e., nutritional outcomes and educational outcomes and hence these are the focus of the study.

  2. The WHO (2010) proposed standardized measures of the height-for-age z-scores and weight-for-age z-scores. Therefore, we follow World Health Organization (WHO, 2010) to create measures for a fair comparison among children of different genders and ages worldwide. The standard formula used to calculate these z-scores is Z = (x-p)/n, where x is the original value of the height-for-age and weight-for-age, p. is the mean of the global reference population set by WHO (2010) and n is the standard deviation of the original value from the mean of the global reference population (sex- and age-specific). The appropriate range identified by WHO (2010) for a valid value of height-for-age z-scores is -6 < HAZ < 6 and weight-for-age z-scores is -6 < WAZ < 6. The rest of the flagged values are dropped from the analysis. Additionally, the criteria have been set by NHS (2010) and WHO (2010) regarding categorizing whether each type of child qualifies into extreme health conditions.

  3. Birth Spacing is defined as the birth space between two successive children, we control it by generating three a dummy variables: dummy = 1 if the spacing between two children is less than 12 months and less, 0 for longer birth spacing or the first born, dummy = 1 if birth spacing between two children is 24 months and less, 0 for longer birth spacing or the first born and dummy = 1 if birth spacing between two children is 33 months and less, 0 for longer birth spacing or the first born.

  4. We also estimate the specifications for the health and schooling outcomes for individual years as opposed to all the years combined and the results are in Appendix B.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Faculty of Economics, Lahore School of Economics, Intersection Main Blvd DHA Phase VI and Burki Road., Burki (Lahore), 53200, Pakistan

    Rabia Arif, Theresa Thompson Chaudhry & Azam Amjad Chaudhry

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  1. Rabia Arif
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Appendices

Appendix A

Figures 1, 2, 3

Fig. 1
figure 1

Percentage of stunted and severely stunted children (age 5 years and less) in migrant and non-migrant HHs by data year

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Fig. 2
figure 2

Percentage of Underweight and Severe Underweight Children (Age 5 years and less) in Migrant and Non-migrant HHs by data year

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Fig. 3
figure 3

Source: Authors’ own calculations

Percentage of children enrolled and dropouts (age 5–17 years) in migrant and non-migrant HHs by data year.

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Appendix B

Tables 21, 22

Table 21 IV Results for Measuring the Impact of Caregiver Emigration on Health Outcomes by Data Year
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Table 22 IV Results for Measuring the Impact of Emigration of the Caregiver on the Schooling outcomes by Data Year
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Arif, R., Chaudhry, T.T. & Chaudhry, A.A. Emigration’s Heterogeneous Impact on Children’s Wellbeing in Punjab, Pakistan. Child Ind Res 16, 1251–1295 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12187-023-10014-4

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