The Effect of Filipino Overseas Migration on the Non-Migrant Spouse’s Labor Supply Behavior

Type Working Paper
Title The Effect of Filipino Overseas Migration on the Non-Migrant Spouse’s Labor Supply Behavior
Author(s)
URL http://www.iza.org/conference_files/worldb2006/cabegin_e2476.pdf
Abstract
This paper examines the effect of the husband’s overseas migration on the nonmigrant wife’s labor force participation and supply behavior. The study uses merged 2003 data sets from the nationally representative Labor Force Survey, the Family Income and Expenditures Survey and the Survey of Overseas Filipinos. Employing alternative empirical specifications of the wife’s labor supply function, the study provides estimates of the income remittance and the conjugal home-time effects of overseas migration. Estimates establish that in households with pre-school age children, wives are less likely to hold a fulltime paid job with larger effects in migrant than in non-migrant households. School-age children encourage the entry of women in non-migrant households into part-time paid employment while having the reverse effect for women in migrant households particularly on full-time paid employment. Children in the very young working age of below do not appear to affect significantly employment participation of women in non-migrant households but induces employment of women in migrant households, particularly into part-time selfemployment. Attainment of a college education raises employment propensities for wives, but less so for migrant than for non-migrant households, implying the presence of a moral hazard problem where remittance receiving households reduce their work effort. And finally, the husband’s earnings contribution to household income lowers the wife’s market participation but the marginal effects are very small in magnitude with only slight variation between migrant and non-migrant households.

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