Migration¹ has a positive impact on girls' education, healthcare and fertility rates in countries that export labour, according to a study by the World Bank published yesterday in Cairo.

"巴基斯坦等许多国家都重男轻女，因此男孩可以获得更多家庭资源，"该报告的首席经济学家及联合主编莫里斯o希夫(Maurice Schiff)表示。"当海外移民通过汇款使家庭获得额外收入时，女孩往往能得到更多。"

"In a lot of countries, [such as] Pakistan, boys are favoured over girls, so they get a larger share of household resources," said Maurice Schiff, the lead economist² and co-editor of the report. "When additional income comes to the family through remittances³ sent by a migrant abroad, more tends to go to girls."

研究发现，在巴基斯坦，家庭中拥有一名移民工人会将女孩入学率提高多达54%，而男孩仅为7%。

The World Bank study found that, in Pakistan, the effect of having a migrant worker in the family was to increase female enrolment in schools by as much as 54 per cent, compared with just 7 per cent for boys.

其它研究结果显示，移民家庭女孩的上学时间平均比非移民家庭的女孩长2年。移民对童工也有影响，因为如果孩子的父亲在海外工作挣钱，儿童被送去打工的可能性就会减小，即使被送去打工，这些孩子的工作时间也会减少大约66%。

Other results showed that girls from migrant households stayed in school on average two years longer than those from non-migrant families. There was also an impact on child labour because children who had a father earning money abroad were less likely to be sent out to work and those who were, worked about 66 per cent less.

报告还发现，移民提高了巴基斯坦和中美洲移民儿童的身高和体重。

It also found that migration improved the height and weight of the children of Pakistani and central American migrants.

收入增加也意味着能够更多地获得医疗保障。在尼加拉瓜，汇款极大提高了医生助产的可能性，这是降低母亲死亡率的一个重要因素。

More money also meant better access to healthcare. In Nicaragua, remittances significantly improved the likelihood of doctor-assisted births, a big factor in reducing maternal⁴ mortality.

报告的另一项发现是，在摩洛哥和土耳其向欧洲输出劳动力的地区，生育率有所下降。报告将这种现象归因于"观念和行为模式从劳动力接收国向输出国传输"。

Another finding was that fertility rates have declined in those parts of Morocco and Turkey that export labour to Europe. It attributed this to "the transmission of ideas and modes of behaviour from host to source country".

报告还发现，归国移民能够在本国获得更高的工资。与没有出过国的人相比，在海外工作过的埃及人的工资最多可高出38%。

The report also found that returned migrants could command higher wages in their home countries. Egyptians who had worked abroad earned up to 38 per cent more than those who had not travelled.

希夫表示，受益的不仅仅是劳动力输出国。

The benefits, says Mr Schiff, are not confined to labour exporting countries.

希夫称："有研究发现，如果经合组织(OECD)国家的劳动力增加3%（即1500万人），并平均分布在各个职业，所获得的好处将比世界所有国家都开放贸易还要大。"

"There are studies which show that if you increase the labour force of OECD countries by 3 per cent, or 15m people, with the same distribution across occupations, the benefits would be larger than if all the countries of the world liberalised their trade," he said.

希夫表示，这些好处应当为劳动力接收国提供有力的理由，实施暂时移民制度，例如，可以规定工人的部分工资在其本国支付，只有在工人最终回国时才能拿到。他表示，这种制度将保留汇款给贫穷国家带来的好处，减少发展中国家的人才流失，并有利于劳动力接收国控制自己的人口规模。

Mr Schiff says these benefits should provide a strong argument for countries that receive labour to adopt systems for temporary migration in which, for instance, a proportion of a worker's salary is paid in the home country and is only available after the worker's final return. Such a system, he said, would maintain the benefits of remittances to poor countries, cut the brain drain from the developing world and let host countries control the size of their population.