The Effects of Migration and Remittances on Labour Market Performance: Evidence from MENA Region

This thesis uses individual level data (micro-data) to examine the impact of remit-tances and migration on the labour market in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA region). The first empirical contribution, we investigate the impact of re-mittances on child labour in Egypt before and after the Arab Spring. The main results show that the Arab Spring is statistically significant with a negative sign on child labour which is interestingly contrary to our prior expectations and females are less likely to work and less likely to attend school. In the second empirical con-tribution, we investigate the impacts of the Syrian refugee crisis on the Jordanian labour market. The main results find that native workers are less likely to work in the informal sector, which could be that Jordanian workers are replaced by Syrian refugees in the receiving cities. Moreover, the results suggest that the monthly wage has dropped in the receiving cities as a response to the shock after Syrian War. In third empirical contribution, we examine the impacts of the Syrian refugee crisis on attitude towards immigrants in the MENA region. The main finding are older peo-ple are less likely to be intolerant towards immigrant and female is more likely to be intolerant. Surprisingly, contrary to our expectations, the respondents who believe that the religion is important in their life are more likely to be intolerant. Moreover, Jordan is more likely to be intolerant, the intolerant increases when controlling for regional variable (refugees) which is the percentage of Syrian refugees in each city. Furthermore, Iraq is more likely to be intolerant when controlling for the percentage of Syrian refugees in each city. Finally, the results show about the regional level variables that when the inequality exists the attitude become intolerant. Moreover, when the percentage of Syrian refugees is higher in the cities, the attitude towards immigrants become intolerant