Effect of education on migration decisions in Ghana: a rural-urban perspective

Abstract

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to investigate the effect of education on migration decisions focusing on rural and urban in-migrants by comparing the 2005/2006 and 2012/2013 rounds of the Ghana Living Standards Survey (GLSS5 and GLSS6). After correcting for selectivity bias, the authors observed that anticipated welfare gain and socio-economic variables such as sector of employment, sex, experience, age, educational level and marital status significantly affect an individual’s migration decision. Design/methodology/approach – The authors made use of Sjaastad’s (1962) human capital framework as a basis for examining the impact of education on migration. The migration decision equation was based on the Heckman two stage procedure. Findings – While educational attainment is observed to have a positive effect on migration decision in the period 2005/2006, the authors find a negative effect of educational attainment on migration decision in the period 2012/2013. The effect of educational attainment on migration decision in 2005/2006 for urban in-migrant is higher than the effect for rural in-migrant, with its significance varying for the different stages of educational attainment. In absolute terms, whereas the effect of secondary educational attainment on migration decisions for urban in-migrant is higher than that of rural in-migrant, the reverse holds for higher educational attainment during the period 2012/2013. Social implications – Based on the mixed effect of education on migration decision as evident from the study, policies to enhance the educational system in Ghana should be complemented with job creations in the entire country. Moreover, special attention should be given to the rural sector in such a way that the jobs to be created in the sector do not require skilled workers. With quality education and job creation, the welfare of individuals living in urban and rural areas will be enhanced. Originality/value – In spite of the importance of education in migration decisions, there is scanty literature on the rural-urban dimension. To the best of the author’s knowledge there is no literature in the Ghanaian context which examines the rural and urban perspective of the impact of education on migration with a much recent data. Further, the author consider how the determinants of migration decision have changed over time focusing on rural and urban perspectives.

Spillover effects of education on internal migration in Malawi

“…In this regard, the extent of schooling within any household and community can have both positive and negative spillover effects on internal migration. For example, these spillover effects of education can rise when an educated member in the household or community makes decisions on behalf of another because they are deemed, as an educated person, to be more qualified to equip people with skills, independence and confidence (Amuakwa-Mensah, Boakye-Yiadom, & Baah-Boateng, 2016;Dreze & Saran, 1995) There is a great deal of literature that examined the spillover effects of education on a number of economic variables such as agriculture, health and standards of living. For instance, in the agriculture sector, studies such as Appleton and Balihuta (1996); Asadullahah and Rahman (2009); Gille (2012); Weir and Knight (2004) found positive spillover effects of education and agriculture productivity as well technical efficiency.…”

“…Empirical literature on effects of education on migration points to a mixed overall degree of impact. For example, education tends to give varying effects (both positive and negative) on migration decisions in Ghana (Amuakwa-Mensah et al, 2016). In addition, the impact of education is of greater factor in relation to urban in-migration as compared to rural in-migration and varies over different levels education attainment.…”

Migraciones internas, inmigración exterior y emigración de españoles hacia el extranjero: un balance por nivel educativo. ¿Es España un país de baja movilidad?

“…El flujo de información es más abundante y disminuyen los costes de la migración (Greenwood, 1975;Greenwood y Hunt, 2003). También se asocia con la ampliación de las redes sociales y, por tanto, migratorias (Palloni et al, 2001), y aumenta el individualismo en detrimento de los lazos familiares, las tradiciones y el arraigo local (Amuakwa-Mensah et al, 2016).…”

“…Se establecen cinco categorías: primaria o inferior, EGB-ESO-CFGM (ciclo for-mativo de grado medio + FP1), bachillerato-CFGS (ciclo formativo de grado superior + FP2), diplomatura o grado y, por último, licenciatura y máster o superior. Tanto para la probabilidad migratoria como para la selectividad, se realizan dos modelos, el primero sin variables de control y el segundo introduciendo las que describe la literatura como más relevantes -sexo, estado civil, empleo, si estudia o no (Sjaastad, 1962;Amuakwa-Mensah et al, 2016)-y algunas que se consideran influyentes dentro del contexto español: lugar de trabajo, sectores económicos, región de nacimiento cuando la población en riesgo está compuesta solo por foráneos y tipo de provincia emisora (ver tablas 4 y 5 del anexo). La categorización de esta última variable responde a la intensidad emigratoria de la misma -baja emisión cuando la expulsión relativa es moderada, media cuando los valores están cerca del promedio nacional y alta cuando es elevada-y al porcentaje de universitarios -bajo, próximo a la media y alto-.…”

The Role of Social Networks on Youth Migration, Settlement and Entrepreneurship in Malawi

“…The main contribution of this paper is to understand the role of social networks in migrant youth settlement and integration, unlike the previous literature (Amuakwa-Mensah et al, 2016;Buller et al, 2015;Ivanova et al, 2015;Kamninga et al, 2020;Manchin & Orazbayev, 2018;Thomas & Inkpen, 2013) which ends at estimating their effects on the decision to migrate The rest of the paper is structured as follows: Section 2 reviews relevant literature. Section 3 discusses the data and methods adopted to establish our findings.…”