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Returns to Low-Skilled International Migration : Evidence from the Bangladesh-Malaysia Migration Lottery Program

Author

Listed:
  • Mobarak,Mushfiq
  • Sharif,Iffath Anwar
  • Shrestha,Maheshwor

Abstract

Many economists believe that the returns to migration are high. However, credible experimental estimates of the benefits of migration are rare, particularly for low-skilled international migrants and their families. This paper studies a natural experiment in Bangladesh, where low-skilled male migrant workers to Malaysia were selected via a large-scale lottery program. This study tracked the households of lottery applicants and surveyed 3,512 lottery winners and losers. Five years after the lottery, 76 percent of the winners had migrated internationally compared with only 19 percent of the lottery losers. Using the lottery outcome as an instrument, the paper finds that the government intermediated migration increased the incomes of migrants by over 200 percent and their household per capita consumption by 22 percent. Furthermore, low-skilled international migration leads to large improvements in a wide array of household socioeconomic outcomes, including female involvement in key household decisions. Such large gains arise, at least in part, due to lower costs of government intermediation.

Suggested Citation

  • Mobarak,Mushfiq & Sharif,Iffath Anwar & Shrestha,Maheshwor, 2020. "Returns to Low-Skilled International Migration : Evidence from the Bangladesh-Malaysia Migration Lottery Program," Policy Research Working Paper Series 9165, The World Bank.
    • Handle: RePEc:wbk:wbrwps:9165
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    File URL: http://documents.worldbank.org/curated/en/812241582828192310/pdf/Returns-to-Low-Skilled-International-Migration-Evidence-from-the-Bangladesh-Malaysia-Migration-Lottery-Program.pdf
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    Citations

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    Cited by:

    1. Rabia Arif & Theresa Thompson Chaudhry & Azam Amjad Chaudhry, 2023. "Emigration’s Heterogeneous Impact on Children’s Wellbeing in Punjab, Pakistan," Child Indicators Research, Springer;The International Society of Child Indicators (ISCI), vol. 16(3), pages 1251-1295, June.
    2. Buechel, Berno & Gangl, Selina & Huber, Martin, 2023. "How residence permits affect the labor market attachment of foreign workers: Evidence from a migration lottery in Liechtenstein," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 152(C).
    3. Joseph-Simon Görlach & Katarina Kuske, 2022. "Temporary migration entails benefits, but also costs, for sending and receiving countries," IZA World of Labor, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA), pages 503-503, November.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Educational Sciences; Inequality; Labor Markets; Employment and Unemployment;
    All these keywords.

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