To Work or Study? The Development of Adolescent Migration Expectations

Abstract Migration features regularly in young adult life course transitions in many low‐ and middle‐income countries. The aspirations–capabilities framework points to the importance of life goals and enabling resources for forming expectations of future moves. For some young people, moving away represents an opportunity to reach their aspirations. Others hold aspirations that are more easily fulfilled in the local setting. To understand how migration is connected to prior experiences and aspirations in adolescence, we focus on the formation of migration expectations, disaggregating expectations to include labor migration, education migration, and the expectation to avoid migration altogether. Relying on longitudinal data from adolescents in three diverse settings, Jalisco, Mexico ( n = 1593), Gaza Province, Mozambique ( n = 1350), and Chitwan, Nepal ( n = 1884), the analyses consider the mechanisms through which contemporary young cohorts form expectations for these different migration pathways. The results show that aspirations motivate distinct migration pathways with strikingly consistent patterns across settings. Educational aspirations are associated with subsequent expectations to migrate for further education, portending diversification of migration flows from low‐ and middle‐income settings where labor migration has predominated but access to formal education is expanding and youth engagement in education is growing.