Education, male gender preference and migrants' remittances: Interactions in rural Morocco

The paper seeks to analyze the relationship between migrants' remittances and educational attendance in rural areas of southern Morocco. We perform a probit model to assess whether children who live in recipient households are more likely to attend school than their counterparts in other types of households. We find that the receipt of remittances has a significant positive effect on school attendance, especially for boys. The findings may be of interest to other developing countries and to the relevant policy makers, as the results suggest that migrants' remittance may serve as a channel for investing in human capital in such recipient countries and that the gains are much greater for boys, contributing to higher gender inequalities in access to education in rural areas.