Child Migrants with and without Parents

7 April 2009

This paper studies child migration in Argentina, Chile and South Africa. It defines child migrants as under 18 year olds whose usual residence was in a different country or province five years prior to census. The paper estimates the scale of child migration; compares relative magnitudes of internal and international migration; and considers sensitivity to alternative definitions of migration. Second, it examines family structures within which migrant children live at destinations, defining children who are co-resident with adult parents and siblings as dependent, and those outside of these close family members, as independent. Third, the internal/international and in/dependent distinctions are analysed jointly to describe some social-economic characteristics of the four sub-groups of migrant children.

Around 4 per cent of children were international or internal migrants, involving 1.4 million children and representing a quarter of all migrants. Some variations exist across the three countries, but not dramatically so. Migrant populations comprise young adults, children and mature adults, in that order of magnitude: 52 per cent were aged 18-39 years, 27 per cent were under 18 years old, and 22 per cent were aged 40+. Definitions affect age-profiles. Migration defined by birthplace rather than residence estimates a lower involvement of children, but not by much - the big difference is between migrant stocks and flows.

A conservative estimate suggests that in the three countries over 7 per cent of children (migrant and non-migrant) resided independently of adult parents or siblings. In South Africa where data was available, just 4 per cent of independent children had both parents dead. Over 10 thousand were international migrants, and 112 thousand internal migrants. This represented 9 per cent of child migrant flows. An upper estimate indicates the scale could be twice as large.

Independent child migrants had worse shelter at destinations, and this contrasts with dependent child migrants who seemed not much different from non-migrants in their type of shelter. Average schooling was around 6 years for independent child migrants, and whilst similar between internal and international migrants, this was nearly two years more than dependent migrant children. In/dependent non-migrants were similar in their years of schooling. Over a fifth of international independent child migrants aged over 15 years were employed, compared to under 4 per cent of non-migrant dependent children. Rates for internal child migrants were lower than international migrants.

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