IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/iza/izadps/dp4887.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

The Effect of Family Separation and Reunification on the Educational Success of Immigrant Children in the United States

Author

Listed:
  • Gindling, T. H.

    (University of Maryland, Baltimore County)

  • Poggio, Sara Z.

    (University of Maryland, Baltimore County)

Abstract

For many immigrants, especially those from Central America and Mexico, it is common for a mother or father (or both) to migrate to the United States and leave their children behind. Then, after the parent(s) have achieved some degree of stability in the United States, the children follow. Using qualitative and quantitative methods, we examined the hypothesis that separation during migration results in problems at school after re-unification. We find that children separated from parents during migration are more likely to be behind others their age in school and are more likely to drop out of high school.

Suggested Citation

  • Gindling, T. H. & Poggio, Sara Z., 2010. "The Effect of Family Separation and Reunification on the Educational Success of Immigrant Children in the United States," IZA Discussion Papers 4887, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    • Handle: RePEc:iza:izadps:dp4887
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://docs.iza.org/dp4887.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Amuedo-Dorantes, Catalina & Georges, Annie & Pozo, Susan, 2008. "Migration, Remittances and Children’s Schooling in Haiti," IZA Discussion Papers 3657, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    2. Richard Akresh & Redstone Akresh, 2011. "Using Achievement Tests to Measure Language Assimilation and Language Bias among the Children of Immigrants," Journal of Human Resources, University of Wisconsin Press, vol. 46(3), pages 647-667.
    3. David Deming & Susan Dynarski, 2008. "The Lengthening of Childhood," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 22(3), pages 71-92, Summer.
    4. Cascio, Elizabeth U., 2005. "School Progression and the Grade Distribution of Students: Evidence from the Current Population Survey," IZA Discussion Papers 1747, Institute for the Study of Labor (IZA).
    5. Stephen V. Cameron & James J. Heckman, 2001. "The Dynamics of Educational Attainment for Black, Hispanic, and White Males," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 109(3), pages 455-499, June.
    6. Anne Case & I-Fen Lin & Sara McLanahan, 2000. "Educational Attainment in Blended Families," NBER Working Papers 7874, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    7. David McKenzie & Hillel Rapoport, 2011. "Can migration reduce educational attainment? Evidence from Mexico," Journal of Population Economics, Springer;European Society for Population Economics, vol. 24(4), pages 1331-1358, October.
    8. Lofstrom, Magnus, 2007. "Why Are Hispanic and African-American Dropout Rates So High?," IZA Discussion Papers 3265, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    9. Miranda, Alfonso, 2007. "Migrant Networks, Migrant Selection, and High School Graduation in Mexico," IZA Discussion Papers 3204, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    10. Fitzpatrick Maria D, 2008. "Starting School at Four: The Effect of Universal Pre-Kindergarten on Children's Academic Achievement," The B.E. Journal of Economic Analysis & Policy, De Gruyter, vol. 8(1), pages 1-40, November.
    11. Krista Perreira & Kathleen Harris & Dohoon Lee, 2006. "Making it in America: High school completion by immigrant and native youth," Demography, Springer;Population Association of America (PAA), vol. 43(3), pages 511-536, August.
    12. Jasso, Guillermina & Massey, Douglas S. & Rosenzweig, Mark R. & Smith, James P., 2008. "From Illegal to Legal: Estimating Previous Illegal Experience among New Legal Immigrants to the United States," IZA Discussion Papers 3441, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. World Bank, 2012. "Better Jobs in Central America : The Role of Human Capital," World Bank Publications - Reports 11924, The World Bank Group.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Tim H. Gindling & Sara Z. Poggio, 2008. "Family Separation and Reunification as a Factor in the Educational Success of Immigrant Children," UMBC Economics Department Working Papers 09-104, UMBC Department of Economics.
    2. Adam Sawyer, 2016. "Is Money Enough?: The Effect of Migrant Remittances on Parental Aspirations and Youth Educational Attainment in Rural Mexico," International Migration Review, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 50(1), pages 231-266, March.
    3. Jia Wu & Junsen Zhang, 2017. "The Effect of Parental Absence on Child Development in Rural China," Asian Economic Policy Review, Japan Center for Economic Research, vol. 12(1), pages 117-134, January.
    4. Sarma, Vengadeshvaran J. & Parinduri, Rasyad A., 2016. "What happens to children's education when their parents emigrate? Evidence from Sri Lanka," International Journal of Educational Development, Elsevier, vol. 46(C), pages 94-102.
    5. Rossella Iraci Capuccinello, 2014. "Determinants and timing of dropping out decisions: evidence from the UK FE sector," Working Papers 15742191, Lancaster University Management School, Economics Department.
    6. Jesus Cañas & Roberto Coronado & Pia M. Orrenius & Madeline Zavodny, 2010. "Do remittances boost economic development? Evidence from Mexican states," Working Papers 1007, Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas.
    7. Dustmann, Christian & Glitz, Albrecht, 2011. "Migration and Education," Handbook of the Economics of Education, in: Erik Hanushek & Stephen Machin & Ludger Woessmann (ed.), Handbook of the Economics of Education, edition 1, volume 4, chapter 0, pages 327-439, Elsevier.
    8. Antman, Francisca M., 2011. "The intergenerational effects of paternal migration on schooling and work: What can we learn from children's time allocations?," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 96(2), pages 200-208, November.
    9. Jamal Bouoiyour, Amal Miftah, 2015. "Migration, remittances and educational levels of household members left behind: Evidence from rural Morocco," European Journal of Comparative Economics, Cattaneo University (LIUC), vol. 12(1), pages 21-40, July.
    10. Feng Hu, 2013. "Does migration benefit the schooling of children left behind?," Demographic Research, Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research, Rostock, Germany, vol. 29(2), pages 33-70.
    11. Bredl, Sebastian, 2009. "Migration, remittances and educational outcomes: The case of Haiti," Discussion Papers 44, Justus Liebig University Giessen, Center for international Development and Environmental Research (ZEU).
    12. World Bank, 2012. "Better Jobs in Central America : The Role of Human Capital," World Bank Publications - Reports 11924, The World Bank Group.
    13. Antje Kröger & Kathryn Anderson, 2011. "Remittances and Children's Capabilities: New Evidence from Kyrgyzstan, 2005-2008," Discussion Papers of DIW Berlin 1170, DIW Berlin, German Institute for Economic Research.
    14. Jamal Bouoiyour, Amal Miftah, 2015. "Migration, remittances and educational levels of household members left behind: Evidence from rural Morocco," European Journal of Comparative Economics, Cattaneo University (LIUC), vol. 12(1), pages 21-40, July.
    15. Michele Battisti & Antonio Francesco Gravina & Andrea Mario Lavezzi & Giuseppe Maggio & Giorgio Tortorici, 2024. "Educational Take-off and the Role of Wealth," Discussion Papers 2024/302, Dipartimento di Economia e Management (DEM), University of Pisa, Pisa, Italy.
    16. Cristina Cattaneo, 2012. "Migrants’ international transfers and educational expenditure," The Economics of Transition, The European Bank for Reconstruction and Development, vol. 20(1), pages 163-193, January.
    17. Dionissi Aliprantis, 2014. "When Should Children Start School?," Journal of Human Capital, University of Chicago Press, vol. 8(4), pages 481-536.
    18. Köllner, Sebastian, 2013. "Remittances and educational attainment: Evidence from Tajikistan," Discussion Paper Series 124, Julius Maximilian University of Würzburg, Chair of Economic Order and Social Policy.
    19. Francisca M. Antman, 2013. "The impact of migration on family left behind," Chapters, in: Amelie F. Constant & Klaus F. Zimmermann (ed.), International Handbook on the Economics of Migration, chapter 16, pages 293-308, Edward Elgar Publishing.
    20. Kroeger, Antje & Anderson, Kathryn H., 2014. "Remittances and the human capital of children: New evidence from Kyrgyzstan during revolution and financial crisis, 2005–2009," Journal of Comparative Economics, Elsevier, vol. 42(3), pages 770-785.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    immigrant children; education; family separation;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • I2 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Education
    • J13 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demographic Economics - - - Fertility; Family Planning; Child Care; Children; Youth
    • J61 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Mobility, Unemployment, Vacancies, and Immigrant Workers - - - Geographic Labor Mobility; Immigrant Workers

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:iza:izadps:dp4887. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Holger Hinte (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/izaaade.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.