Children of Internal Migrants: Does Moving with Parent(s) Affect Schooling Progression?

Using the 2011 Cambodia Rural Urban Migration Project, we reexamine the effect of parental migration on the long-term educational progress of children who have accompanied their parents to urban areas by comparing such children with those left behind in rural areas. We use a measurement that captures schooling disruption effect and allows for the possibility that being a migrant child also depends on school quality in the neighbourhood. The fixed-effect estimator is applied to eliminate family characteristics shared among siblings such as parental resources and perceptions towards education. Regression shows that migrant children are in a more disadvantageous situation, relative to children left behind, as a result of the migration of their parents.