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

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.