Emigration Prospects, Gender-based Preferences, and the Choice of Major

Abstract

We explore how emigration prospects influence students’ choice of university majors in a high-emigration setting. Using a discrete choice experiment in Bosnia and Herzegovina, we find that students prioritize salary prospects when choosing their major. Moreover, students—including those who do not intend to migrate—place significant weight on emigration prospects when choosing a major. This finding reveals how students factor emigration into their decisions, even if they do not plan to leave. Our analysis also shows that male and female students exhibit similar preferences, consistently valuing salary the most, followed by emigration prospects and job flexibility. While we observe some gender-based differences, they are less pronounced than those observed in similar experiments in low-emigration countries. We argue that, in a relatively less stable economic context, students’ drive for financial stability and employability reshapes their education choices.