Impacts of remittances on child human capital investment, educational expenditure, and living conditions of households: evidence from Turkey

Official URL: http://192.168.1.20/record=b1505273 (Table of Contents)

This paper examines the impacts of international remittances on child human capital investment, educational expenditure, and living conditions of households. Remittances can increase family income and reduce resource constraint problems, allowing more consumption and investment. On the other hand, migration which is the main driving force behind remittances may have a disrupting effect on family structure and may result in adverse outcomes. After controlling for household wealth- the main observable selection dimension on remitting, average estimates suggest that 6-14 years old girls from recipient households are more likely to attend school and 6-14 years old boys from recipient households are less likely to be illiterate. 15-19 years old girls and boys from recipient households are less likely to work as wage earners and as unpaid family workers, respectively. Remittances improve living conditions of households by reducing the probability of suffering from poverty. Lastly, recipient households spend more on secondary school expenses and on any sort of educational purposes. When it comes to heterogeneity of impacts of remittances which is derived by estimating specifications separately for households with one parent absent due to migration, and for households where both parents are present at home, 15-19 years old girls from households with both parents present at home seem to benefit the most from remittances. Girls from recipient households where both parents are present at home have higher school attendance and lower participation in wage labor. For boys from remittance receiving households with both parents present at home, there is no advantage in school attendance and wage labor implying the presence of gender differences in the use of remittances across households and possibly within households. Girls and boys from recipient households with both parents present at home, seem to be more literate. Households are less likely to live in poverty or extreme poverty if both of the parents are at home and they receive remittances. For households where both parents are present at home, remittances work in the direction of obtaining the favored outcomes, whereas for households where one of the parents is absent migration's disrupting effect on family structure neutralizes positive impacts of remittances on outcomes of interest implying that remittances act like extra income for households where both parents are present at home which is free from the disrupting effect of migration on family structure and mimic the impacts of family income on outcomes of interest.