Ana Rivas and Germán Calfat Arnoldshain Seminar XI June 25 -28, Antwerp, Belgium

1. Understanding the psychological well-being of children left behind : The case of the Austro Region in Ecuador Ana Rivas and GermánCalfat Arnoldshain Seminar XI June 25 -28, Antwerp, Belgium

2. Outline • Background • Children as unit of analysis • Key concepts • Empirical strategy • Data • Methodology • Estimation Results ( Preliminary) • Concluding remarks

3. Background • MigDev: Institutional cooperation between Flemish Universities (VLIR) and the Univ. of Cuenca in Ecuador • Research objective: Explore the economic and social impact of migration on local development (The Austro region ), • Information challenge: Available sources of information (e.g. Census, LSMS) limited the opportunities to accomplish project’s main goals. • Design of a Monitoring impact migration mechanism (MIMM)  MIMM survey

4. Background (2) Return migration Human capital Social remittances MIMM Health and nutrition Vulnerability

5. Children as unit of analysis • There is little research on the impact on children’s psychological wellbeing. • Related literature: • Aspirations /expectations of students ( Bohnme, M. (2012); Dreby, J. and Stutz, Lindsay ( 2012) • Emotional, behaviour factors ( Asian region: Philippines , Vietnam, Indonesia, Thailand) • Local context: Available studies examine this issue relying on qualitative approaches with very limited samples. • Figures from MIMM survey : • Children population (<18) : 992\ • Accounts 32% urban population • 12% are children left behind • 76% attend school • Migrant parents • 90% of migrants parents are “illegal” workers, performing low skills jobs in US.

6. Key concepts • Two basic concepts: • Education aspirations : the desire to attain a specific level (grade) of education based on his(her) present and future perspectives. • Dembo (1931/1976); Qualia, R. & Cobb, C. (1976) • Indicator of psychological well-being : Account for child’s hyperactivity, peer relations, emotional and behavioural factors (Goodman R. (1996))

7. Empirical strategy • Aims : • Investigate what factors account for and explain educational aspirations of children left behind. • Explore to what extent the parental absence impact the psychological health of the children left behind • Data • Sources of information • MMIM : Information from HH • Schools: • Basic information on student’s population + student’s school performance, • PEACH : • Self reported : emotional and behavioural difficulties, positive attitudes (strengths), future goals , views on migration, family migration histories • Parents /tutors : aspirations and expectations on their children’s education , • Teachers : problems and difficulties endured by each of the students

8. Educational aspirations • Model: • Child_ch Child characteristics (gender, age, ed. level); • Family_facts situational family factors ( parents living apart, migrant parents, HH with remittances); • well-being indicator • fut_persp future migratory perspectives (desire country and motivation), • Demog demographic controls (rural/urban)

9. Child well-being • Model • Child_ch Child characteristics ( gender, age, ed.level) • Caregive_fact set of variables typifying caregiving in transnational context (e.g migrant: mom, caregiver: dad,) • par_cfact Indicator for child communication with parents (based on frequency), • length of parent absence, • Demog demographic factors (urban/rural, wealth proxy)

10. Methodology • Variables of interest are categorical Ordered logit

11. Child well-being indicator

12. Results: Ed. aspirations • Contrary to expectations (Mexican experience) having a migrant father (US), increases the probability of reaching the highest level of education aspiration. • As expected older children are less ambitious in terms of aspirations. • Girls’ hopes of accomplishing higher levels of education are higher compared to adolescent males. • Perspectives to migrate to both Spain and the US increases the likelihood of reaching higher educ. Aspirations. • Main motivations for migration reduce (as expected) the level of aspirations. • Low levels of well-being influences negatively the hopes for higher education levels. • Not very surprising, living in a rural area (keeping in mind a poor educational infrastructure in the region) decreases the probability of attaining higher level of education.

13. Results: Child well-being • Findings: • As expected the absence of one of the parents leads to a deterioration of child well-being • Age and education covariates indicate that adolescents experience a deterioration of their well-being as they become older • Communicating with migrant father on regular basis improves child well-being

14. Concluding remarks • Our preliminary findings shows that family factors including migration account on explaining educational aspirations and child well-being • Our results need to be confirmed/complemented with further qualitative research undertaken with children, caregivers and teachers