Migration, Remittances and Nutrition Outcomes of Left-Behind Children: A National-Level Quantitative Assessment of Guatemala

Abstract

Historically, Guatemalans have suffered high rates of poverty and malnutrition while nearly ten percent of their population resides abroad. Many Guatemalan parents use economic migration, mainly international migration to the United States, as a means to improve the human capital prospects of their children. However, as this investigation shows, the timing of migration events in relation to left-behind children’s ages has important, often negative and likely permanent, repercussions on the physical development of their children. To illustrate these dynamics, this investigation uses an instrumental variables framework to disentangle the countervailing effects of Guatemalan fathers’ absences due to migration from concomitant remittances on left-behind children’s growth outcomes. Based on national-level data collected in 2000, the investigation reveals that the international migration of a father in the previous year is correlated with a 22.1% lower length/height-for-age z-score for the average left-behind child aged ≤ 3. In contrast, the receipt of remittance income has no influence on the physical stature of a child, which may indicate that migrant fathers with young children are not able to achieve economic success soon enough during their ventures abroad to fully ameliorate the harmful effects caused by their absences.

The association between parental migration and early childhood nutrition of left-behind children in rural China

“…The present study broadly supports the previous findings that parental migration was not significantly detrimental to child nutrition [13,16,22,36] and even confirm the benefits of paternal migration on early childhood nutrition of rural children [13,37,38], despite contrary results found in other studies [5,18,39]. A decreasing difference in early childhood nutrition between children with various parental migration statuses was shown in recent years, and in the survey in 2016, no significant differences in risks of stunting, underweight, and wasting were detected between them.…”

Social grants, remittances, and food security: does the source of income matter?

“…On the other hand, Ponce et al (2011) also in Ecuador and using a different instrumental variable techniquefound no effect of remittances on nutrition. In Guatemala, Davis and Brazil (2016) showed that international remittances have no influence on the nutritional status of children left behind (aged 3 or less), which could indicate that fathers are not able to improve their economic situation soon enough to make an impact on their children's nutrition. Finally, a panel study in Mexico showed that migration (including remittances) had a detrimental effect on children's height-for-age (Nobles 2007).…”

International Migration and Health in the Countries of Origin. The Effect on Households with Migrants and/or Recipients of Remittances, and on Returned Migrants. A Systematic Review

“…There is evidence of positive impacts on the children's nutritional condition (10,40), the diet of older adults (18), the increase of weight at birth (3,19), the weight conditions of children younger than 15 years old (9) and the decrease in the prevelance of growth retardation (62,42). However, some studies reported negative effects such as the worsening of the diet of the household members (51,63), malnutrition among pre-schoolers (64), children younger than 18 years old would present growth retardation (63,65), the migrants' wives (15), and children between 1 and 5 years old were overweight (64), a part from the abandonment of exclusive breastfeeding (10).…”

“…Some studies did not find evidence that remittances affected health outcomes such as the proportion of children who attend school with malnutrition (73), consumption of health services (35), access to public health services (31), health expenditure of households (12), child mortality (65,67) and that measure the long-term health condition of children (growth retardation, low weight), the prevalence of respiratory diseases and of diarrhea (33).…”