Abstract
International migration has been increasing since 1970, with the largest flows originating in developing nations and streaming into industrialized nations (Zlotnik 2006). The United Nations estimated the 2010 global foreign-stock population at 214 million, up from approximately 82 million in 1970 (United Nations [UN] 2012; Freeman 2006). About 3.1 percent of all people did not reside in their country of birth in 2010, compared with approximately 2.2 percent in 1970. 1 Contemporary international migration differs from that of earlier periods in several important ways related to the social and economic well-being of migrants, especially the young. First, the regional origins and destinations of migrants have changed. For example, many former European source countries have become immigrant-receiving nations (e.g., Spain, Italy, and Germany), while former immigrant-receiving South American nations now produce Europe-bound emigrants. Second, contemporary international migration is occurring against the backdrop of an unprecedented demographic divide—an aging industrialized world and a youthful developing world. In 2005, nearly one-third of the developing world’s population was between 10 and 24 years old—precisely the age range that has witnessed a steep rise in migration rates (McKenzie 2008). Finally, the age and gender composition of international migration flows has changed as a growing number of women and children cross national boundaries (Freeman 2006; Zlotnick 2003). 2
The feminization of migration flows has been amply documented, but there has been less systematic empirical research about the involvement of children and youths in international migration and the consequences for their psychosocial, physical, and economic well-being. Notable exceptions are studies that focus on child and adolescent labor migrants (e.g., McKenzie 2008; Lloyd 2005); the children of immigrants (second generation) in developed countries (e.g., TIES and ICSEY); 3 and highly vulnerable groups, such as victims of trafficking for sex, labor, or armed conflict (e.g., Carey and Kim 2006; Zimmerman 2003). 4
Whether and how migration improves or diminishes the life opportunities of children and youths is poorly understood for several reasons: (1) research about child development is seldom connected with the study of migration and economic development; (2) much research that focuses on young people with migration backgrounds is based on case studies that may not be generalized readily; 5 and (3) estimates of world migration streams were not disaggregated by age until very recently (UN 2012). Using 2010 international censuses, the UN estimated that globally about 16 percent of all migrants were younger than 20 years old and that more than one-third of migrant youths were younger than 10 (UN 2012). Case studies based on small and unrepresentative samples are not well suited for systematic comparative assessments of child and youth migration.
Unless migrant youths are engaged in the labor market, they often are ignored by international reports about migration and development. 6 For example, the 2007 World Development Report (World Bank 2006), which focused on children, claimed that countries with burgeoning youth populations could reap economic dividends by investing in health, education, and job training, but the report did not underscore the unique challenges that youths with migration backgrounds confront and how their experiences differ across receiving nations and according to their generational status. This omission partly reflects a differing focus: studies about migration and economic development concentrate on remittances and employment, while researchers concerned with child development often ignore the implications of migration status for social and emotional well-being.
Toward a Child-Centric Approach to Migration and Development
Human development and geographic mobility are social processes that evolve over time. Therefore, understanding how migration influences the well-being of young people and how migrant children fare in their host countries ideally requires longitudinal data as well as information about their origin and host societies. Because information about origin communities is seldom available to researchers (see González-Ferrer, Baizan, and Beauchemin, this volume, for an exception), few studies portray the selection process that determines whether children migrate with their parents, follow them later, or remain behind and wait for their return. Rather, most studies about children with migration backgrounds focus on migrant children at their new destinations and draw inferences about integration prospects by comparing migrant and second-generation youths with citizens of their host countries on various indicators of physical, social, and economic well-being.
Table 1 presents a conceptual framework that situates child migration within the context of family, which represents the proximate decision-making unit. Family migration involves coterminous movement of parents and children. Notwithstanding disruptions necessarily associated with geographic moves, this arrangement should produce the fewest deleterious outcomes for children because it does not involve separation from parents, as, for example, when one or both parents migrate and leave the child behind. Although not directly involved in migration, children left behind are impacted by the absence of their parents, and their relative well-being depends on not only the level and regularity of remittances but also the length of parental separation (Harttgen and Klasen 2008; Rossi 2008; González-Ferrer, Baizan, and Beauchemin, this volume). Child migration commands a great deal of media attention because it involves minors crossing international boundaries without their parents. Depending on age at migration and motivation for moving (e.g., to pursue education or work versus involuntary trafficking), the significance of child migration for well-being varies appreciably. There are no reliable estimates regarding the global prevalence of child migration without a parent because international data suitable for estimating prevalence of migration by age lack information about reasons for migrating.
Child-Centric Migration Framework
Migration requires youths to make sense of a new country by learning to navigate the social institutions of their host society and, more often than not, a new language. The difficulty of these challenges depends on the age at which youths migrate, whether they moved alone or in the company of one or more family members, the similarity of the host society to their origin culture, the generosity of welfare institutions, and the general acceptance of foreigners at their destination. Many migrant children must cope with unwelcoming communities, particularly if they settle in places where residents are unaccustomed to foreigners.
An increasing number of children with migration backgrounds in both traditional and new immigrant-receiving nations raises important research and policy questions about how children’s migration status is associated with their integration prospects, and why migrant youths fare better in some host countries than in others. Until recently, research about the consequences of migration for youths was highly fragmented by destination, research method, and the outcomes of interest. Furthermore, with few exceptions (Berry et al. 2006), most of the empirical literature about the social and cultural integration of immigrant youths and children of immigrants was based largely on the experience of the United States, with less attention on other major immigrant-receiving nations, such as the United Kingdom, Germany, and France; as well as new immigrant nations such as Spain and Italy.
Several comparative and country-specific studies about youths with migration backgrounds have been developed during the past decade or two to fill this research void. However, the vast majority of these studies focus on the children of immigrants—the second generation, born in their new countries—with uneven attention paid to those who migrated during their youth. Furthermore, except for case studies based on specific groups or localities, research about the second generation considers mainly the experiences of adolescents and young adults. For example, the Integration of the European Second Generation (TIES) study, which focuses on the transition to adulthood in eight European countries, is based on urban samples of second-generation youths and adults ages 18 to 35, with only retrospective information about early childhood experiences. To be sure, this multicountry study will generate rich comparative insights about the transition to adulthood for young people whose parents migrated from Turkey, Morocco, or the former Yugoslavia, but it will have little to say about the integration challenges of young people from these countries who themselves migrated as children or adolescents. As we discuss below, several longitudinal birth-cohort studies permit researchers to fill this long-standing gap in the research about the second generation.
Empirical evidence attests that cognitive, social, and emotional competencies acquired in early childhood facilitate later learning (Heckman 2006). Because early mastery of these three competencies provides the foundations for many adult outcomes, a focus on children and adolescents with migration backgrounds—both those born in their native countries and those born after their parents migrate—permits researchers to identify preventable circumstances that can thwart successful integration. Therefore, longitudinal data that follow children over time are essential to understanding whether and how youths with migration backgrounds may be disadvantaged compared with their native counterparts whose parents are not migrants.
At least four birth-cohorts—the Millennium Birth Cohort Study (MCS) in the United Kingdom, the Fragile Families and Child Wellbeing Study (FFS) and the Early Childhood Longitudinal Study (ECLS) in the United States, and the Longitudinal Survey of Australian Children (LSAC) in Australia—are well suited for comparative analyses of second-generation children’s well-being. Despite their long immigration traditions; similar language and cultural traditions; and their comparative health care, educational, and social institutions, Australia, the United Kingdom, and the United States differ in ways that have direct implications for integration of immigrants. To take one example from this volume, Deborah Cobb-Clark and her coauthors report country differences in the ages at which children begin school. A late school-entry age is less consequential for native youths than for immigrant youths, who must learn the host language before they are able to study in that language.
Despite the absence of longitudinal data spanning many years, it is possible to infer links between migration status and various indicators of social and economic integration using cross-sectional data, provided analysts have a clear understanding of the implicit counterfactuals in causal comparisons. For instance, would a child have been better off if the parents had not migrated? What if the parents had migrated to a different country, or if the parents had migrated at a different point in the child’s life cycle? Alternatively, would a child have been better off if the parents had waited until after migration to have their baby? Each question presupposes a different counterfactual and can be used to understand later outcomes by asking, for example, how adult outcomes might differ if children had migrated at a different point in their life cycles. As demonstrated by several articles in this volume, age at the time of migration provides a bridge between the rich literature about child development and studies of immigrant integration because age at migration allows researchers to evaluate the costs of adapting to a new society vis-à-vis exposure to host-country institutions, particularly schools. That the ability to master a second language declines with age provides a strategic window to evaluate the life-cycle consequences of child migration.
New Insights on Child Migration and Social Integration
The articles in this volume use both cross-sectional and longitudinal data to assess the integration experiences of migrant children and youths, focusing on educational outcomes, health status, and family arrangements. The first three articles focus on educational attainment of youths with migration backgrounds, but they differ in their comparative scope and depth. Cobb-Clark, Mathias Sinning, and Steven Stillman analyze data from the 2009 Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) to compare scholastic achievements of migrant and native youths in thirty-four OECD countries. Their consideration of institutional arrangements is an important innovation because it enables them to identify opportunities for policy interventions. Specifically, they identify significant cross-national variation in the age at which children begin school, in the prevalence of preschool, in educational expenditures, and in national policies about testing youths in the host or origin-country language. They find that scholastic achievement gaps are wider for migrant youths who arrive at later ages and for youths who do not speak the language of the host country’s achievement test at home but that the magnitude of the achievement gaps also depends on institutional arrangements, such as the age at which compulsory schooling begins and education expenditures. Although earlier school-starting ages generally benefit migrant youths, this result is not universal across countries. This may reflect differences between the languages of the host country and the origin country. 7
Davide Azzolini, Philipp Schnell, and John Palmer use 2009 PISA data to investigate how children with immigrant backgrounds compare with native students in reading and mathematics skills in Italy and Spain. These “new” immigration countries share not only a recent and remarkable growth of migratory inflows but also notable similarities in the structures of their economies, labor markets, and welfare systems. In both, youths with migration backgrounds underperform academically relative to natives, with the largest gap between natives and first-generation migrants followed by that between natives and second-generation migrants. Children of mixed couples, that is, those having one native and one foreign-born parent, are indistinguishable from natives. Azzolini and his associates find that socioeconomic background and language skills explain a similar share of the achievement gap in both countries but that the language spoken at home is more strongly associated with achievement in Italy. The authors suggest that different immigrant selectivity regimes between the two countries account for the larger mathematics achievement gap of first-generation students observed in Spain. They reinforce the claims that Cobb-Clark and her associates make in this volume about the importance of institutional arrangements for academic achievement of youths with migration backgrounds by showing, for example, that tracking is strongly associated with students’ test scores in Italy—a finding that is further clarified by Alessandra Minello and Nicola Barban in their article.
In addition to characterizing the nature of Italy’s tracking system, Minello and Barban analyze a recent nationally representative survey of native- and foreign-born students (ITAGEN 2005–2006) in Italy to address variation in educational aspirations of eighth graders. They find that family socioeconomic status and students’ friendship ties are associated with choice of secondary school—whether university-bound or vocationally oriented—as well as their future college aspirations, but migration status is not associated with tertiary aspirations. Minello and Barban also consider whether the educational aspirations of native peers attending the same school are associated with the educational goals of youths with migrant backgrounds. Their results indicate that immigrant children attending a middle school where at least one-third of their Italian peers expect to attend high school are more likely to report high school expectations than immigrant youths who attend schools with smaller shares of highly motivated Italian natives.
A second set of papers examines several social consequences of child migration, including family disruption and reconstitution, intermarriage, and fertility—all outcomes that have important implications for assessing the sustainability of generous welfare policies in aging industrialized countries. Amparo González-Ferrer, Pau Baizán, and Cris Beauchemin are pioneers in examining the likelihood of child-parent reunification either in the destination or origin country. Their innovative study uses a unique survey, Migration between Africa and Europe (MAFE), that includes interviews with migrants or their relatives in the sending country (Senegal) and migrants residing in three European destinations (Italy, Spain, and France). Separations among family members are relatively common, and many are long, especially if the absent parent is the father. Where reunifications occur (whether in Senegal or in Europe) is associated with markedly different family types and migration strategies. Parents who end separations by returning to Senegal often belong to families that are polygamous, have a large number of children, and have grandparents alive in Senegal—a clear departure from the Western nuclear family model. When the absent parent is the mother, when migrants belong to an ethnic group that follows maternal lineage, and when Senegalese families follow Western family arrangements, family reunification is more likely to occur in Europe than in Senegal.
Two papers use detailed information about age at migration to investigate several adult consequences of child migration. Most migrant youths likely move with their parents. Hence, the household decision that results in their move is plausibly independent of the various statuses that they achieve as adults, including labor-market participation, educational attainment, and family structure. Because early arrival affords child migrants more time to attend local schools and learn the rules of their host societies, age at arrival is bound to shape the nature and extent of adaptation. Audrey Beck, Miles Corak, and Marta Tienda find a clear association between the stage of development upon arrival, which they argue involves sensitive periods of human development, and educational attainment; in turn, educational attainment has consequences for youths’ capacity to become fully integrated into the American mainstream as adults. They use the 5 percent public use file from the 2000 U.S. Census to show that, as predicted by child development theory, the likelihood of graduating from high school decreases significantly each year for children who arrive after the age of eight. Using an instrumental variables approach to estimate correctly the impact of educational attainment on adult outcomes, they find that arriving in the United States after age eight leads to variations in educational attainment that influence how well children speak English in adulthood and whom they marry. Youths from non-English-speaking countries are much less likely to report speaking English very well, much less likely to be married to an English-speaking person, and much more likely to be married to someone from the same country of origin if they arrive after that critical age.
In another paper that focuses on age at arrival and variation in family formation, Alícia Adserà, Ana M. Ferrer, Wendy Sigle-Rushton, and Ben Wilson examine how the fertility of women who migrated as children, relative to that of natives, varies by age at migration. They employ data from the Canadian Census 1991–2006 for Canada, the Enquête sur Trajectoires et Origines (TeO) 2008 for France, and a subsample of the Office for National Statistics Longitudinal Study (ONSLS) set of linked census records (1971–2001) for the United Kingdom. Despite differences in the selectivity of the migration policies in the three countries compared, results show broadly similar family formation patterns, with fertility increasing with age at migration, particularly in adolescence (although this profile is flatter in Canada). When the association between age at immigration and fertility is allowed to vary by place of birth, results from England and Wales as well as France reveal that the fertility effect of exposure to the host country varies somewhat by country of origin. This finding underscores the importance of taking into account the heterogeneity of the foreign-born population for assessing the long-term integration prospects of youth migrants.
The last set of papers exploits the longitudinal dimension of birth-cohort data to examine variation in physical and mental health status of children with migration backgrounds. The first two use the FFS from the United States and the MCS from the United Kingdom to analyze variations in the health practices and outcomes of mothers who differ in ethnic background and migration status. Margot Jackson, Sara McLanahan, and Kathleen Kiernan investigate whether the immigrant advantage in health behaviors regularly found in the United States extends to mothers in the United Kingdom. Importantly, given the different source countries of immigrants and the relative size of the second generations in each country, the authors distinguish between ethnicity and nativity. Jackson and her associates confirm that immigrant women in the United Kingdom engage in healthier behaviors, and they find very small differences in mothers’ receipt of early prenatal care in both countries. In the United Kingdom, South Asian, black African and Caribbean, and other immigrant mothers are less likely to smoke during pregnancy, less likely to smoke around their children, and more likely to breastfeed than those born in the United Kingdom. This generalization applies to both socioeconomically disadvantaged and advantaged mothers. The authors also find that these differences persist throughout early childhood, which suggests a “universality” of healthier behaviors among foreign-born mothers that transcends racial/ethnic and socioeconomic groups, time, and distinct policy contexts.
Melissa L. Martinson, Sara McLanahan, and Jeanne Brooks-Gunn also use MCS and FFS longitudinal data to investigate ethnoracial and socioeconomic variation in child overweight. They find that minority and immigrant status are risk factors for child overweight in both countries but that the salience of socioeconomic status operates differently for minorities than for whites. In the United States, low income and low education are associated with lower obesity risks for children of black mothers. A similar association (albeit not statistically significant) exists for Hispanic children in the United States and for all minority groups in England. Surprisingly, Martinson and her colleagues find that mother’s age at migration does not moderate the association between immigrant status and child overweight and mother’s obesity; however, mother’s obesity is consequential for children only of selected demographic groups. Indeed, mother’s age at migration accounts for between 20 and 30 percent of the higher obesity risk among native-born black and Hispanic children in the United States and for about 10 percent of the higher obesity risk among foreign-born black children in England. Martinson and her coauthors also find that the association between maternal obesity and family socioeconomic status is stronger for school-age children than for toddlers in both countries.
Finally, Lucinda Platt examines the social and economic well-being of children of mixed ethnicity partnerships in the United Kingdom—a focus that merges the themes of health and social outcomes. Using data from both the Household Labour Force Survey from 2002 to 2005 and the MCS, she considers whether interethnic partnerships influence the likelihood that a child is exposed to a set of potentially adverse outcomes. Platt finds that children in families with mixed parentage face a higher risk of living in a family where neither parent works compared with youths who live with ethnically homogamous parents. However, this result depends on the specific ethnic combination of the couple. Although interethnic partnerships are not associated with a higher risk of maternal depression, lone motherhood is associated with maternal depression, except among low-educated black Caribbean mothers. Having parents from different ethnic groups was not associated with children’s chances of experiencing social and emotional difficulties at age three, after controlling for appropriate risk factors such as maternal depression, education, and lone parenthood.
Collectively and individually, the papers in this volume add to the literature about child migration through their systematic comparisons of traditional and “new” immigrant-receiving nations and through their attention to variation in institutional arrangements that are important for successful integration of youths with migration backgrounds. Their framing of analyses within the child development literature as well as their attention to differences within and between countries provide a strong framework for future work regarding the integration prospects of migrant youths.
Footnotes
NOTE:
NOTE: The authors are very grateful to the Institut d’Anàlisi Econòmica (IAE, CSIC) in Barcelona and, in particular, to Ada Ferrer Carbonell, for co-organizing and hosting the conference where all these papers were presented and thoroughly discussed.
Notes
Alícia Adserà is a research scholar and lecturer at the Woodrow Wilson School and the Office of Population Research at Princeton University. Her research interests are in economic demography and development. Her recent work focuses on the determinants and consequences of low fertility and migration.
Marta Tienda is Maurice P. During ’22 Professor in Demographic Studies and professor of sociology and public affairs at Princeton University. Her research focuses on various aspects of race and ethnic stratification, and she is codirector of Princeton University’s Global Network on Child Migration.