Education, Internal Remittances and Safety Nets in Africa: Some Evidence

This paper uses LSS data from Cote d'Ivoire and Ghana to investigate the effects of education on social safety nets proxied by internal migrant remittances in Africa. We find that education has positive and statistically significant effect on the probability of sending as well as of the amount of remittance. The estimates are robust to model specification, data organization, and estimation method. The results suggest that one mechanism through which education provides a social safety net in Africa is the migration and remittances channel. Our results suggest that investment in education may not only accelerate economic growth in Africa, it may also provide a social safety net for the population.