You’ll Be a Migrant, My Son: Accounting for Migrant Selection within the Household

Abstract

This paper presents a theoretical model to account for household-based migration decisions and derives its implications for migrant selection within the household. Unlike individual selection models, a household model allows us to account for the role played by future remittances, along with earnings differentials, in shaping intrahousehold selection patterns of migrants. We develop a structural estimation procedure based on an extension of the Roy-Dahl model and provide an empirical application using original matched data on Senegalese migrants in three host countries and their household of origin in Senegal. We exploit information on Koranic schooling and birth rank to predict migrants’ remittance potential. Our results show that, conditional on earnings, household members with the highest remittance potential have a higher propensity to be selected into migration, consistent with the predictions of our household model.