Poverty of the Children of the Moldovan Migrants We Express Our
Total Page：16
File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb
View metadata, citation and similar papers at core.ac.uk brought to you by CORE provided by Policy Documentation Center Poverty of the children of the Moldovan migrants Valeriu Prohni ţchi EXPERT-GRUP Republic of Moldova We express our gratitude to the staff of the Strategic Policy Monitoring Unit who helped the author with estimates and other useful data. Contents: Summary ..................................................................................................................... 3 Introduction .................................................................................................................. 4 1. How many children left behind by migrating parents? ............................................. 5 How many migrants?................................................................................................ 5 Existing estimates on the number of the children left behind ................................... 7 New estimates ........................................................................................................ 10 Where do children live? .......................................................................................... 13 2. Poverty of the children left behind by Moldovan migrants ...................................... 15 Income of the children of migrants ......................................................................... 15 Inequality of the income and expenditures among the children left behind ............ 18 3. Access to education and health services ............................................................... 20 Pre-school .............................................................................................................. 20 Primary ................................................................................................................... 20 University ............................................................................................................... 21 Attitudes and practices on healthy life .................................................................... 22 4. Migration and social poverty of children ................................................................. 23 Family disintegration .............................................................................................. 23 Behavioral aspects ................................................................................................. 25 Social exclusion ..................................................................................................... 26 Emotional distress .................................................................................................. 26 Personal security risks ........................................................................................... 27 5. Labor market and labor attitudes ........................................................................... 29 6. Conclusions and recommendations ....................................................................... 32 Annex ........................................................................................................................ 35 Bibliography ............................................................................................................... 36 List of tables: Table 1 Population living in households with children aged below 16 and its poverty incidence at absolute poverty line*, 2004 ........................................................................ 5 Table 2 Evolution of migration, thousands if not otherwise indicated .............................. 6 Table 3 Share of young people leaving without family members, % ............................. 11 Table 4 Distribution of men and women migrating contingent by age ........................... 12 Table 5 Distribution of the children left behind by Moldovan migrants across rural/urban criteria, as of February 2005 .......................................................................................... 13 Table 6 Poverty in households with children aged below 16,% ..................................... 16 Table 7 Income and expenditures in households with children under 16 years age, MDL ...................................................................................................................................... 16 Table 8 Correlation destination country / average salary paid / share of migrants ........ 18 Table 9 Number of students at various levels of education, per 10000 inhabitants ....... 21 Table 10 Correlation age of starting drinking / are there migrants from family .............. 22 Table 11 Negative effects generated upon migration of one or another family head member ......................................................................................................................... 23 Table 12 Indicators of behavioral deviations among the young people in Moldova ....... 26 Table 13 Indicators of the Moldovan labor market ......................................................... 30 Table 14 Structure of specializations, graduates from universities ................................ 31 List of figures: Chart 1 Proportion of some items of consumption in households budgets across quintiles ......................................................................................................................... 19 Chart 2 Correlation of the number of emigrants and demographic indicators ............... 24 Chart 3 Rate of non-marital births, as % of total ............................................................ 25 List of abbreviations and acronyms: NSB – National Statistical Bureau; SPMU – Strategic Policy Monitoring Unit of the Joint Program of the Government of Republic of Moldova and UNDP/UNICEF “Support to Strategic Policy to Formulation, Monitoring and Evaluation in the Republic of Moldova”; HBS – Household Budget Survey; ATU Gagauzia – Autonomous Territorial Unit Gagauzia; Summary This report focuses on the impact of migration on the situation of the Moldovan children left behind by migrating parents. It finds that the total number of these children is large and the official figures underestimate the extent of this phenomenon. According to official information around 28000 children in the academic year 2004/2005 were left by both parents and more than 68000 thousand were left by one parent. These numbers do not correlate with the large annual outflows and large total stock of the Moldovan migrants. We have used three alternative methods to check the magnitude of this phenomenon: 1) based on the results of a statistically representative survey conducted with Moldovan youth, 2) based on fertility rate and number of migrant women and 3) based on the proportion of children in total population under the assumption that this proportion does not change much in case of migrants cohort. The methods return different results with between 150 thousand and 270 thousand children aged 0-14 having been left by one parent. The total number of children remaining behind both migrating parents is more than 40 thousand. The report finds that most of these children live in country-side, which is not a surprise because: a) most of the Moldovan population lives in country side; 2) most of the migrants come from villages; and 3) rural families are larger that urban ones. However, the children living in small towns face the highest risk of remaining behind emigrating parents. This finding correlates with the fact the population living in small towns encounters also the highest risk of becoming poor. We have not discovered any evidence that children left by migrating parent would be in average more disadvantaged compared to others. Moreover, in monetary terms most of these children are better-off than others. This is a conclusion derived from both qualitative and quantitative studies. However, some of the children who are left by both parents seem to be in particularly severe poverty. The report makes the hypothesis that remittances which alleviate poverty of most of the children are likely to generate more income inequality among the children. While there are indirect and mostly qualitative confirmations of the hypothesis, the issue deserves further research. The education and health outcomes of the children left by migrating parents are not addressed properly in existing literature. Some of the qualitative report asserts that in most of the cases educational outcomes worsen after parents leave. Also, it is not clear if these children are more likely than others to get accustomed with unhealthy patterns of live: smocking, drinking alcohol or taking drugs. Several reports made by school directors and tutors affirm that there is such a trend, but existing statistical data and researches do not confirm nor infirm this affirmation. Also, a report finds that children living without parents are more inclined to commit crimes, but the quality of this report is not clear. Children left by parent are more disposed to feel emotional and psychological distress. The long-term impact of this distress is not clear nor is the degree of marginalization of these children. Subjective assessments made by population tend to view the children of the migrants as more likely to be marginalized, mistreated or even abused. Report conducted in Moldova find that these children become easier victims of human trafficking. The report takes on the issue of integration of these children via the labor market. But again, the analysis suffers from lacking statistical data. Other reports have found that many of potential