Resources

Rural migration to urban areas in China has dramatically increased since the last decade. Estimates show that the inter-regional migrant population grew from 20 million to 45 million between 1990 and 1995, and over 79 million by 2000. The opportunities provided by migration can also affect households' decision to send children to work or attend school. These decisions are affected by their ability to cover education-related costs, the opportunity cost of attending school, and the expected private returns to investment in education. If new wage earning opportunities for unskilled labor can be found by migrating , opportunity costs may dominate the private returns of education. This seminar will discuss how reductions of barriers to migration affect the decision of middle school graduates to attend high school in rural China.The presentation will be based on the paper "Migrant Opportunity and the Educational Attainment of Youth in Rural China". In this paper, Giles and De Brauw exploit the timing of national identity card distribution -- which facilitates for rural migrants to register as temporary residents in urban destinations -- to find a negative relationship between migrant opportunity and high school enrollment. The presentation will discuss underlying methodological issues and the importance of these findings in the poverty reduction and human development policies, especially in rural settings.

This seminar series aims to facilitate the dialogue between the analytical and research advances on migration, and the policy and operational dialogue on this increasingly important issue.

Presentation:

• "Migrant Opportunity and the Educational Attainment of Youth in Rural China" ( ppt 1058 KB)