Seasonal Migration and Early Childhood Development

By K. Macours, Renos Vakis. 2010

120 citations recorded by the source corpus.

This paper provides unique evidence of the positive consequences of seasonal migration for investments in early childhood development. The authors analyze migration in a poor shock-prone border region in rural Nicaragua where it offers one of the main household income diversification and risk coping strategies. IV estimates show, somewhat surprisingly, that in particular mother's migration has a positive effect on early cognitive development. The authors attribute these findings to changes in income and to the intra-household empowerment gains resulting from mother's migration, which offset potential negative ECD effects from temporary lack of parenting. This paper, hence, illustrates how increased opportunities in seasonal migration due to higher South-South mobility might positively affect early childhood development and as such long-term poverty reduction.

Subfields: Gender Studies, Safety Research, Sociology and Political Science

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/670c4aeed65dd4fe672e2dea1b552ff2c0f912c0

How researchers see this paper

The researchers whose trusted networks rank it highest, strongest advocate first. Every researcher gets a different order.

In Gender Studies

1. John Gibson
2. David J. McKenzie
3. Francisca M. Antman
4. Melanie Morten
5. N. Fiala
6. S. Franklin
7. Pedro H. C. Sant’Anna
8. Jonathan Roth

In Safety Research

1. Francisca M. Antman
2. John Gibson
3. Melanie Morten
4. David J. McKenzie
5. Pablo A. Acosta
6. Robert S. Chase
7. Julien Labonne
8. A. de Brauw

In Sociology and Political Science

1. David J. McKenzie
2. Francisca M. Antman
3. John Gibson
4. Melanie Morten
5. R. H. Adams
6. Pablo A. Acosta
7. Michael A. Clemens
8. Gordon H. Hanson

Citations in the corpus

• The Impact of Migration on Family Left Behind (2012, background): “Macours and Vakis (2010) present evidence that maternal migration has a positive impact on early cognitive development of children in Nicaragua, a finding they attribute to changes in income and maternal empowerment stemming from migration.”
• The Development Impact of a Best Practice Seasonal Worker Policy (2010, background): “Macours and Vakis (2010) use a cross-sectional survey of Nicaraguan households near the border with Honduras, where workers migrate seasonally.”
• Temporary Migration and Endogenous Risk Sharing in Village India (2019, result): “…the following year in less than half of the observations.23 This is consistent with households mi- 21 For the prevalence of temporary migration in other developing countries, refer to de Brauw and Harigaya (2007) (Vietnam), Macours and Vakis (2010) (Nicaragua), and Bryan et al. (2014) (Bangladesh).”