The Effect of Foreign Remittances on Schooling: Evidence from Pakistan

The underlying study intends to show the impact of foreign remittances on the educational performance of children in the households receiving these remittances. Much of the literature in this area covers the effects of remittances on poverty, consumption, and investment behaviour of the receiving households. The literature on the impact of remittances on educational performance, however, is rare, especially in Pakistan. To investigate the impact of remittances on educational performance, primary data at the household level is collected from four main cities of the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Province, Pakistan. The OLS results illustrate that, without considering parental education, remittances have significant adverse effects on educational performance. However, the effect becomes insignificant once parental education is included, as a control variable, in the regression. The results also reveal that the low level of parental education, current income, assets, family type, and family size play an important role in the educational performance of children.