Curse of low-skilled emigration on human capital formation: Evidence from the migration surge of the 2000s
研究了2000年代OECD国家低技能移民激增对来源国人力资本形成的抑制作用，发现这种移民预期会降低来源国的高等教育入学率和整体人力资本指数，且对中高收入国家影响显著。
• This paper documents a large increase in the number of low-skilled (LS) migrants in OECD countries in the 2000s. • This paper examines the disincentive effect of the prospect of LS emigration on human capital formation in the migrant-sending countries. • This disincentive effect is found to reduce both the average years of schooling and the human capital index in migrant-sending countries. • The disincentive effect on overall human capital formation is manifested through a substantial reduction in tertiary educational attainment. • This adverse effect of LS emigration significantly impacts middle- and high-income countries, but not low-income countries. Low-skilled emigration is generally construed as benign and even beneficial for the migrant-sending countries. However, it can also lead to a disincentive effect on human capital formation in the source countries. Using a panel bilateral migration dataset that captures the surge of low-skill migrants in OECD countries in the 2000s, we study how low-skilled emigration affects human capital formation in the migrant-sending countries. We find that the expected returns to low-skilled emigration reduce long-run human capital formation as measured by the average years of schooling and the human capital index of the migrant-sending countries in the subsequent decade. This negative effect on overall human capital formation is manifested through a substantial reduction in tertiary educational attainment, which is both statistically significant and robust to various sensitivity tests and alternative model specifications. Additionally, there is some evidence of a positive association between the expected returns to low-skilled emigration and secondary educational attainment in the subsequent decade. An important qualification is that only middle- and high-income countries are strongly affected by low-skilled emigration, while low-income countries show little to no disincentive effect.