Migration background and educational achievements in Russia

January 14, Edgar Demetrio Tovar-García, PhD in Economics, University of Barcelona, Associate Professor of the Department of Public Policy (Faculty of Social Sciences, HSE) took part in the "Culture Matters" research seminar with the report on "Migration background and educational achievements in Russia".

At the beginning of his report Edgar Demetrio noted that according to UN data the number of migrants, Russia ranks second after the United States, and the migration service of the Russian Federation provides data that about 70,000 migrant children studied at Moscow schools. That is why the topic is very relevant for Russia.

Using data from the Russian Monitoring of Economic Situation and Population Health, HSE (RLMS-HSE), the reporter studied the influence of migration background on educational achievement of migrant children in Russia by constructing a logistic regression. The sample consisted of longitudinal data of schoolchildren aged 6 to 14 (1st to 8th grades) for the period 2010-2013 (four waves).

In contrast to earlier studies on this topic, in this study, Edgar Demetrio used a large set of control variables that could influence academic achievement of pupils, such as parents' education, family income, professional status of parents etc.

The results of the study showed that migration background has no influence on academic achievement of school students when control variables are socio-economic status (SES), child health, type of school, village, and other personal characteristics, which contribute statistically significant effects to the differences between successful and non-successful students.