Father's Labor Migration and Children's School Discontinuation in Rural Mozambique

Scott T. Yabiku, Arizona State University

Although there is substantial existing research on the relationships between labor migration and children's schooling, research on migration typically has emphasized the migrant versus non-migrant dichotomy. Labor migrants, however, are a diverse group: depending on their skills, networks, and available opportunities, some are economically more successful than others. In this paper, we examine the association between diverse conceptualizations of male labor migration and an important family outcome: the discontinuation of children's schooling. The setting for our analyses is rural Mozambique, a setting characterized by massive male labor migration, mainly to South Africa. The data come from a multi-wave panel study of women that has been monitoring their reproductive health and well-being, children's schooling, and experience with male labor migration since 2006. We examine male migration success and accrued migration experience, and find that both conceptualizations of labor migration benefit children's schooling.