Abstract:

This study explores the impact of international migration on native students' educational achievements. Following the 2004 EU enlargement, a substantial influx of Polish students heightened competition for primary education in the UK, particularly in Catholic schools, which are among the top state-funded educational institutions. Our identification strategy predicts migrants' location choices with a novel instrumental variable that leverages the quasi-random allocation of migrants following a WWII dispersal policy. Combining historical data on Polish settlements with comprehensive administrative records on students in primary schools in England, we find that migrants led to the displacement of native students away from Catholic schools toward non-faith schools. Our estimates reveal substantial displacement effects, with native students moving to non-faith schools offering similar value-added education and proximity to their homes but featuring a higher proportion of lower-performing and disadvantaged peers. We provide evidence that displacement and changes in peer composition due to migration affected native achievement in opposite directions.