Educational Aspirations and Migration: A Comparative Approach

Jennifer Glick , Pennsylvania State University
Sarah Miller, Pennsylvania State University
Melissa Alcaraz, The Ohio State University
Dirgha J. Ghimire, University of Michigan

Educational aspirations are important predictors of educational attainment and intergenerational mobility for children and youth. These aspirations are built from children’s own experiences in the family of origin and community. At the family level, parental education, family resources and parenting practices shape children’s orientations towards schooling. Although educational aspirations figure heavily in the research on educational attainment and disparities, they are less often considered as returns to migration. This paper explores the association between familial migration from the household and the educational aspirations of children and youth remaining behind in two very different settings. The analyses consider the extent to which children’s educational aspirations are related to migration from their household, relationship to the migrant and caregiver’s aspirations. These associations are compared by child gender and age. With new comparative data on children, the paper explores consistencies in these relationships in two very different social and economic settings of migration.

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 Presented in Session 104. International Migration and Child Well-being