Please use this identifier to cite or link to this item: https://hdl.handle.net/10419/149164 
Authors: 
Year of Publication: 
2016
Series/Report no.: 
IZA Discussion Papers No. 10305
Publisher: 
Institute for the Study of Labor (IZA), Bonn
Abstract: 
This paper examines the effect of international migration on the welfare of family members left behind at the origin. Previous literature has produced inconclusive evidence, with some studies suggesting that migration reduces income poverty while others show that non-migrants bear a larger work burden to compensate for the loss of migrants' earnings. This paper provides a new unified framework that generates testable predictions of whether migration increases non-migrants' welfare in terms of both consumption and leisure time. Drawing on household panel data in rural Mexico, I find that migration increases non-migrants' consumption, but that this consumption gain cannot be explained by labor supply adjustments. Migration improves left-behinds' welfare through two different channels: (i) migrants' remittances exceed their forgone income contribution to the origin household; and (ii) the out-migration of a farmer increases the marginal productivity of agricultural labor for those left behind in the farm.
Subjects: 
migration
remittances
welfare
labor supply
consumption
Mexico
JEL: 
O15
J22
F22
Document Type: 
Working Paper

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