The last two decades have witnessed an increased feminization of international migration
and the Philippines is no exception. Whereas in the 1970s women formed about 15 percent
of the migrant labor force, in 2010, 55% of new hires of Filipino migrant workers were female.
Most of these women are married and many have children.
This paper explores the e§ects of a mother migrating on her childrenís wellbeing. We use
as control group children with migrant fathers to identify e§ects coming from remittances from
those resulting from parental absence. Exploiting demand shocks as an exogenous source of
variation in the probability that the mother migrates, we Önd that children of migrant mothers
are approximately 5 percentage points more likely to be lagging behind in school compared to
children with migrant fathers. The negative e§ect of the mother migrating is not explained
by gender di§erences in income abroad or remittance behavior, supporting the hypothesis that
motherís absence has a stronger detrimental e§ect than fatherís absence.