Migration Closes Gender Gap

Friday, August 10, 2007

A new study from the World Bank:

Migration Closes Gender Gap, Brings Other Social, Health Gains

International migration not only reduces poverty in the poorer nations where most journeys begin, but can generate a range of generally positive social and health effects in the home countries, particularly among girls, and even including nonimmigrant families.

These are among the key conclusions of the new book International Migration, Economic Development, and Policy, co-edited by Caglar Ozden, Economist in the World Bank’s Development Research Group, and Maurice Schiff, the International Migration and Development Research Program’s Lead Economist .The book provides new documentation on the already reported positive impact of migrant remittances on families in 12 Latin and Caribbean home countries.

The book’s extensive data and research, which also includes rural Pakistan, Turkey, Egypt and Morocco in its selected case studies, shows how migration can lead to outcomes in developing home countries that:
* Close the gender gap and put more girls in school and lower their dropout rate.
* Reduce child labor.
* Improve child health, particularly girls’.
* Lower high fertility rates when migration is to low-fertility countries and raise them when migration is to high-fertility countries.
* Promote entrepreneurship. [Read more]