Both theoretically and empirically, childbearing decreases labour supply of females, but few papers examine the effect of children on whether women emigrate to work. Using exogenous variations in family size induced by parents’ preferences for mixed sibling-sex composition in instrumental variable estimations, we find that, in Sri Lanka where most migrants are women and mothers, children decrease labour participation of females in the domestic market but they increase the likelihood of females working abroad

Parinduri, Rasyad

Sarma, Vengadeshvaran

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MPRA
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Children and Maternal Migration:
Evidence from Exogenous Variations in
Family Size
Vengadeshvaran Sarma and Rasyad Parinduri
Nottingham University Business School, University of Nottingham,
Malaysia Campus
May 2014
Online at http://mpra.ub.uni-muenchen.de/56283/
MPRA Paper No. 56283, posted 30. May 2014 13:50 UTC
1 
 
Children and Maternal Migration: 
Evidence from Exogenous Variations in Family Size 
Vengadeshvaran J. Sarma
*
 and Rasyad A. Parinduri 
 
Nottingham University Business School,  
University of Nottingham, Malaysia Campus  
 
Abstract 
Both theoretically and empirically, childbearing decreases labour supply 
of females, but few papers examine the effect of children on whether 
women emigrate to work. Using exogenous variations in family size 
induced by parents’ preferences for mixed sibling-sex composition in 
instrumental variable estimations, we find that, in Sri Lanka where most 
migrants are women and mothers, children decrease labour participation 
of females in the domestic market but they increase the likelihood of 
females working abroad. 
 
 
Keywords: maternal migration, childbearing, Sri Lanka. 
JEL Codes: F22, J13, J22 
 
 
*
Corresponding author: Email: vengadeshvaran.sarma@nottingham.edu.my. 
  
2 
 
I. Introduction 
What is the effect of childbearing on whether women work abroad? Do 
children reduce maternal migration as they do maternal labour supply in 
domestic markets? 
 Many papers find children reduce female labour supply, but few 
examine the effects of children on maternal migration. Using instrumental 
variable (IV) estimations, Angrist and Evans (1998), for example, find a child 
decreases women’s labour market participation rates in the US by about nine 
percentage points; Cruces and Galiani (2007) similar estimates for Mexico and 
Argentina, 8-9 percentage points; Baez (2008) a larger estimate in Colombia, 
28 percentage points. In contrast, papers on migration usually use fertility as a 
control variable in ordinary least square (OLS) regressions without addressing 
fertility’s possible endogeneity (Prelipceanu, 2008).  
We examine whether children affect maternal migration from Sri Lanka 
using exogenous variations in family size. The case of Sri Lanka is interesting 
because most Sri Lankan migrants are females and, like in countries where 
most migrants are females, mothers: They go abroad to work and leave their 
children and husbands in Sri Lanka. They are also low skilled, most of whom 
work as housemaids in the Middle East. Because they are atypical, children, 
therefore, may affect the female labour supply abroad differently. 
 
 
 
3 
 
II. Empirical Strategy and Data 
Because childbearing is endogenous, we estimate the effect of children on 
maternal migration using IV methods. Following Angrist and Evans (1998), 
we use sibling-sex composition in families with two or more children as an 
instrument for the number of children in a two-stage regression.
1
 In the first 
stage, we estimate  
                                                  (1) 
where                         is an indicator equals one if a mother in 
household i who lives in district j has three or more children and zero 
otherwise;            is the instrumental variable, an indicator equals one if 
the first two children in household i are both boys or both girls and zero 
otherwise;   is a vector of individual- and household characteristics, which 
includes the mothers’ age, religion, years of schooling  (in some specifications 
we also include the households’ source of lighting and cooking method)—
each as a set of dummy variables;  
 
 is district fixed-effects, which control for 
observed- and unobserved time-invariant district-specific factors; and   is the 
error terms. In the second stage, we estimate 
                                     ̂              (2) 
                                                          
1
 We could also use twins as an instrument, but the number of twins in our data is 
small. 
4 
 
where           is the migratory status of the mother in household i who 
lives in district  j equals one if she is a migrant worker and zero otherwise, and 
                      ̂  is the predicted probability of having more than 
two children in Equation (1).  
We use the Sri Lanka Integrated Survey 1999-2000, a representative 
survey of Sri Lanka except for the Northern and Eastern regions where the 
then on-going civil war disrupted data collection.
2
 It includes 7,500 
households and 35,181 individuals across eight provinces, 25 districts, and 
500 communities. Because we analyse children in households with at least two 
children below the age of 16, our sample has 3,761 observations.  
 
III. Results 
Table 1, which presents the first-stage estimates, shows sibling-sex 
composition, same sex, predicts more than two children well: Having two 
boys or two girls increases the likelihood that parents have more children by 
7-9 percentage points. The estimates are similar and significant statistically 
across the three specifications regardless of whether we control for mother or 
household characteristics.  
[Insert Table 1 here] 
Table 2, which presents the second-stage estimates, shows that children 
increase migrated, female labour supply abroad: Having more children, 
                                                          
2
 The data are available from http://www.erd.gov.lk/publicweb/erddocs.html. 
5 
 
induced by having two boys or two girls, makes mothers more likely to 
migrate abroad to work by 6-8 percentage points. The two-stage least square 
(2SLS) estimates are similar and significant statistically whether we control 
for covariates across the three specifications in columns 2-3; they are bigger 
than OLS estimate in column 1, which is about three percentage points. 
[Insert Table 2 here] 
Table 3 presents the effect of children by the education of the mothers 
from regressions in which we introduce the interaction terms of education 
levels of the mothers with same sex (in the first stage) and more than two 
children (in the second stage). The first stage estimates in column 1 show 
same sex predicts more than two children similarly across education levels of 
the mothers. The second stage estimates, however, indicate children matter 
more on the migration of the less educated mothers. 
[Insert Table 3 here] 
We also examine the effects of children, using the same instrumental 
variable, on female labour participation in the domestic market (i.e., in Sri 
Lanka) and male labour supply abroad (i.e., paternal migration). Table 4 
confirms the findings in the literature that children reduce domestic labour 
participation of females and that they do not seem to affect labour supply of 
males. The estimate of the first is negative, about seven percentage points, and 
significant statistically; that of the second is insignificant statistically. 
6 
 
[Insert Table 4 here] 
 
IV. Concluding Remarks 
Children decrease domestic labour supply, but they increase labour supply of 
females abroad, especially the less educated.  (Children do not seem to affect 
labour supply of males.)  Therefore, in developing countries like Sri Lanka 
that send their unskilled females to work abroad, there may be heterogeneity 
in the effects of childbearing on labour participation of females (in domestic v. 
foreign markets). 
The estimates of the effect of children on domestic labour supply of 
females confirm the findings in the literature, but those of the effect of 
children on labour supply abroad are surprising. We can perhaps offer two 
explanations: monetary incentive and childcare. One, having more children is 
costly and, hence, requires more income, which induces the mothers to work 
abroad. Athukorala (1990), for example, argues that unskilled women from Sri 
Lanka are more likely to work abroad since wages abroad are five to ten times 
higher. Two, if the mothers work abroad, they cannot take care of their 
children, which they may find undesirable; but, if they have more children, 
they may have the eldest child to provide the childcare for younger children if 
he or she is old enough. Gamburd (2000) and Save the Children (2006), for 
example, show that, older children are likely to take care of younger siblings 
in the mothers’ absence. We also find in our data that when a mother migrated 
7 
 
to work, the eldest child in the family was on average 12-14 years old and the 
mother was on average 37 years old. 
 
  
8 
 
References 
Angrist, J. D. and Evans W. (1998). ‘Children and their parents’ labor supply: 
Evidence from exogenous variations in family size’. The American Economic 
Review. Vol. 88(3), pp. 450-477. 
 
Athukorala, P. (1990) ‘International Contract Migration and the Reintegration 
of Return Migrants: The Experience of Sri Lanka.’ International Migration 
Review, Special Issue: Labor Recruiting Organizations in the Developing 
World, Vol. 24(2), pp. 323–46. 
 
Baez, J. E. (2008). ‘Does more mean better? Sibling sex composition and the 
link between family size and Children’s Quality’. IZA Discussion Paper No. 
3472. Institute for the Study of Labor (IZA). 
 
Cruces, G., and Galiani, S. (2007). ‘Fertility and Female Labour Supply in 
Latin America: New Causal Evidence’. Labour Economics. Vol. 14(3), pp 
565-573. 
 
Gamburd, M. R. (2000). The Kitchen Spoon’s Handle: Transnationalism and 
Sri Lanka’s Migrant Housemaids. Ithaca: Cornell, University Press. 
 
9 
 
Prelipceanu, R. (2008). ‘A Gendered Approach to Temporary Labor Migration 
and Cultural Norms: Evidence from Romania’. CES Working Paper Series. 
University of Pairs, France.  
 
Save the Children. (2006). ‘Left Behind, Left Out: The Impact on Children and 
Families of Mothers Migrating for Work Abroad’. Summary Report, Save the 
Children in Sri Lanka.  
10 
 
Table 1. The first-stage estimates 
Dependent variable: More than two children    
 (1) (2) (3) 
    
Same sex 0.086*** 0.081*** 0.068*** 
 (0.010) (0.010) (0.011) 
Covariates    
Age and religion    
    
Years of schooling, source of lighting, source 
of cooking 
   
    
Number of observations 3,761 3,761 3,761 
    
F-statistic of excluded instrument 24.18 18.71 14.26 
    
Notes: Each cell is the estimate of the second-stage regression of more than two children 
on same sex and some covariates and district fixed-effects. More than two children equals 
one if a mother has two or more children and zero otherwise; same sex equals one if the 
first two children are boys or girls; each of the covariates enters the regressions as a set of 
dummy variables. Robust standard errors are in parentheses; the sign *** indicates 
statistical significant at 0.1 percent level. 
11 
 
 Table 2. The second-stage estimates of the effect of children on labour supply 
abroad 
Dependent Variable: Migrated OLS  2SLS  
 (1) (2) (3) (4) 
     
More than two children 0.032* 
(0.015) 
0.078** 
(0.028) 
0.068* 
(0.032) 
0.061* 
(0.030) 
     
Covariates     
Age and religion     
     
Years of schooling, source of 
lighting, cooking method 
    
     
Observations 3,761 3,761 3,761 3,761 
     
Notes: Each cell is the estimate of the second-stage regression of migrated on more 
than two children, district fixed-effects and some covariates using same sex as an 
instrumental variable (each of the covariates enters the regressions as a set of 
dummy variables). Migrated equals one if a mother worked abroad; more than two 
children equals one if a mother has two or more children; same sex equals one if the 
first two children are boys or girls. The sample includes married women with two or 
more children. Robust standard errors are in parentheses; the signs ** and * indicate 
statistical significant at one percent level and five percent level, respectively. 
 
 
 
  
12 
 
Table 3. The 2SLS estimates with education level interaction terms 
 First stage Second stage 
 (1) (2) 
Primary 
 
0.061**  
(0.019) 
0.072** 
(0.025) 
Secondary  0.058** 
(0.021) 
 0.063*  
(0.029) 
Higher 0.057** 
(0.022) 
0.043 
(0.024) 
Observations 3,761 3,761 
Notes: Columns 1 and 2 are the first- and second stage regressions that includes 
interaction terms of dummies of completion of primary, secondary, or higher 
education with same sex (column 1) and more than two children (column 2), district 
fixed-effects and sets of dummies for the age of mothers and their religion. We 
present the estimates of the interaction terms only for brevity. Primary equals one if a 
mother has 1-5 years of schooling, secondary 6-11 years, higher more than 11 years. 
The dependent variable in the first stage is more than two children; in the second 
stage migrated. Migrated equals one if a mother worked abroad; more than two 
children equals one if a mother has two or more children; same sex equals one if the 
first two children are boys or girls. The sample includes married women with two or 
more children. Robust standard errors are in parentheses; the signs ** and * indicate 
statistical significant at one percent level and five percent level, respectively. 
  
13 
 
Table 4. Local labour market participation and paternal migration 
 Mother worked  
in Sri Lanka 
Father worked 
abroad 
 (1) (2) 
More than two children 
 
-0.071**  
(0.026)  
0.032 
(0.024) 
Observations 3,761 3,876 
Notes: Each cell is the estimate of the second-stage regression of the dependent 
variable listed on top row on more than two children using same sex as an 
instrumental variable. Control variables include district fixed-effects and sets of 
dummies for the age of mothers and their religion. More than two children equals one 
if a mother has two or more children and zero otherwise; same sex equals one if the 
first two children are boys or girls. The sample in column 1 includes married women 
with two or more children; that in column 2 married men with two or more children. 
Robust standard errors are in parentheses; the sign ** indicates statistical significant 
at one percent level.  
 
 
 
 


Children and Maternal Migration: Evidence from Exogenous Variations in Family Size

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Children and Maternal Migration: Evidence from Exogenous Variations in Family Size

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