What forces children away from home? Evidence from Uganda

Child mobility is a significant phenomenon all over the world and is especially prominent in developing countries, where it is made worse by income conditions in rural households. The aim of this paper is to advance a step forward in the quantitative investigation of factors driving rural households’ decisions to send children away from home. Using Ugandan panel data to account for household unobserved heterogeneity, we find that the presence of a female household head as well as her/his age, the presence of a female household head, a higher number of children, marital status, and the circumstance of mother not living in the household increase the likelihood of sending away children. On the other hand, other factors such as education and mobile phone ownership does not seem to play a role.