Migrant remittances in Thailand: Economic necessity or social norm?

The remittances of internal migrants contribute in various ways to the well-being of their households of origin. This study examines the significance of selected socio-economic and demographic factors associated with remittance behaviour in Thailand as characterized by the propensity to remit and amount remitted. The extent to which remittances affect the living standard of house-holds left behind is also appraised. The analyses suggest that in Thailand sending remittances is a practice rooted in altruism which enables out-migrants to retain personal contact with their households of origin for an extended time. Thus, it is widely exercised regardless of the economic needs of the household. At the same time, out-migration is an effective means for low-income households to quickly overcome shortages of income. The sustenance of poor households might have been difficult without remittances. From a macro-perspective, remittances contribute to the equalization of the income distribution among households having out-migrants.     

International Migration and the Education of Children: Evidence from Lima,Peru

The issue of whether emigration has consequences for the education of children who remain behind in the country of origin occupies an increasingly prominent place in the agendas of both scholars and policy makers. The conventional wisdom is that the emigration of family members may benefit children by relaxing budget constraints through remittances that can be used to cover educational expenses. However, the empirical evidence on the overall effect of migration is inconclusive. This is due in part to a substantive emphasis on remittances in the literature, as well as the inability of some studies to deal satisfactorily with the endogeneity of household migration decisions in comparing outcomes across migrant and non-migrant households. Using Peruvian data from the Latin American Migration Project (LAMP), we apply an innovative instrumental variable technique to evaluate the overall effect of migration on educational attainment and schooling disruption among the children of immigrants. In contrast to conventional wisdom, our results suggest that a higher household risk of immigration has deleterious consequences for the education of children who remain behind.     

Labor Migration,Remittances and Economic Well-being of Households in the Philippines

Labor Migration has long been viewed as a strategy adopted by the household unit to allocate family resources rationally to increase the flows of income and to raise family standard of living. The research reported here examines the extent to which remittances sent by Filipino overseas workers increase the income and standard of living of households in the Philippines. Data for the analysis were obtained from a representative sample of 2,388 households drawn in 1999–2000 from four major “labor sending” areas in the Philippines. The analysis compares households with and without overseas workers to estimate the contribution of remittances to household income and to household standard of living (measured once by an ‘objective’ indicator and once by a ‘subjective’ assessment). The data reveal that due to remittances the income of households with overseas labor migrants is considerably higher than the income of households without overseas workers. The data also reveal that remittances are used mostly for consumption purposes (e.g. purchase of food, clothing, education, and goods) and that most of the difference in standard of living (whether measured on the ‘objective’ or the ‘subjective’ scale) between households with and without overseas workers are attributed to remittances. The implications of labor migration and the policy that encourages and supports labor migration for the Filipino society are evaluated and discussed.

Family Migration in a Developing Country

A family model of migration is developed and empirically tested by using longitudinal data for respondents living in Ilocos Norte Province, Philippines. Based on the framework of a family-migration system, family migration is assumed to depend on the character of linkage to the migration system, family household structure, socio-economic resources, family pressure to migrate, family/kin ties to place of origin, and previous mobility experience of family members. Family-migration behaviour is specified as migration of some (one or more) family members, or of the entire family. The findings support the importance of linkage to a family-migration system by way of remittances and the previous mobility experience of family members in the prediction of both types of family migration. Migration of some family members is also predicted by fewer parcels of land owned, higher levels of education, larger household size, and an early life-course stage. Family pressure to migrate, indicating the interactional context of the family, is important for the migration of entire families. It is concluded that the framework used and results presented help explain how migration becomes an institutionalized reality of family life in many developing countries.     

Remittances as insurance: evidence from Mexican immigrants

We argue that remittances are, in part, transferred to the home country to purchase family-provided insurance and self-insurance. We use data on Mexican immigrants with work experience in the United States to capture the motives for sending remittances and use a novel approach to test for the insurance motive by relating host economy risk levels to remittance flows. We find that increases in income risk significantly raises both the propensity and the proportion of labor earnings sent home for family-provided insurance and for self-insurance.     

The effects of migrant remittances on population–environment dynamics in migrant origin areas: international migration, fertility, and consumption in highland Guatemala

International migration impacts origin regions in many ways. As examples, remittances from distant migrants may alter consumption patterns within sending communities, while exposure to different cultural norms may alter other behaviors. This paper combines these insights to offer a unique lens on migration’s environmental impact. From an environmental perspective, we ask the following question: is the likely rise in consumption brought about by remittances counterbalanced by a reduction in fertility in migrant households following exposure to lower fertility cultures? Based on ethnographic case studies in two western highland Guatemalan communities, we argue that the near-term rise in consumption due to remittances is not counterbalanced by rapid decline in migrant household fertility. However, over time, the environmental cost of consumption may be mitigated at the community level through diffusion of contraception and family planning norms yielding lower family size.     

Migrant remittances and the web of family obligations: ongoing support among spatially extended kin in North-east Thailand, 1984-94

Exchanges of money, goods, and assistance among family/kin members are influenced by the intertwined lives of individuals and their family/kin. As people pass through the young adulthood years, acquiring obligations as spouses and parents, and migrating in search of economic opportunities, tensions can arise over existing obligations. Using rich longitudinal data from Northeast Thailand, we examined the role of family networks (origin and destination) on migrants' exchanges with family/kin. Our approach overcame many shortcomings of earlier studies, allowing us to 'see' the family social network arrayed in a broader network. We show that intra-family exchanges are influenced by marital status, the presence of children, having parents in the origin household, and having siblings depart from it. The results are stable across sensitivity tests that systematically include or exclude various familial links. In addition, reports provided by origin households on migrant remittances are consistent with reports from migrants themselves.     

Remittances in the Republic of Georgia: Correlates, Economic Impact, and Social Capital Formation

The economic impact of remittances on migrant-sending countries has been a subject of debate in the scholarly literature on migration. We consider the topic using a household-level approach. We use a new survey, “Georgia on the Move,” to examine migrant-level, household-level, and contextual variables associated with the probability that a household in the Republic of Georgia receives remittances. We then apply propensity score matching to estimate how remittances affect particular types of household expenditures, savings, labor supply, health, and other measures of well-being. Separate analysis of the subsample of households with a migrant currently abroad distinguishes the effects of remittances from the effects of migration as such. In Georgia, remittances improve household economic well-being without, for the most part, producing the negative consequences often suggested in the literature. We find evidence for an important aspect that has not been widely discussed in prior studies: remittances foster the formation of social capital by increasing the amount of money that households give as gifts to other households.     

The Impact of Migration and Remittances on Wealth Accumulation and Distribution in Rural Thailand

This article studies the impact of internal migration and remittance flows on wealth accumulation and distribution in 51 rural villages in Nang Rong, Thailand. Using data from 5,449 households, the study constructs indices of household productive and consumer assets with principal component analysis. The changes in these indices from 1994 to 2000 are modeled as a function of households’ prior migration and remittance behavior with ordinary least squares, matching, and instrumental variable methods. The findings show that rich households lose productive assets with migration, potentially because of a reduction in the labor force available to maintain local economic activities, while poor households gain productive assets. Regardless of wealth status, households do not gain or lose consumer assets with migration or remittances. These results suggest an equalizing effect of migration and remittances on wealth distribution in rural Thailand.     

Different Reasons,Different Results: Implications of Migration by Gender and Family Status

Previous research on migration and gendered career outcomes centers on couples and rarely examines the reason for the move. The implicit assumption is usually that households migrate in response to job opportunities. Based on a two-year panel from the Current Population Survey, this article uses stated reasons for geographic mobility to compare earnings outcomes among job migrants, family migrants, and quality-of-life migrants by gender and family status. We further assess the impact of migration on couples’ internal household economy. The effects of job-related moves that we find are reduced substantially in the fixed-effects models, indicating strong selection effects. Married women who moved for family reasons experience significant and substantial earnings declines. Consistent with conventional models of migration, we find that household earnings and income and gender specialization increase following job migration. Married women who are secondary earners have increased odds of reducing their labor supply following migration for job or family reasons. However, we also find that migrating women who contributed as equals to the household economy before the move are no more likely than nonmigrant women to exit work or to work part-time. Equal breadwinner status may protect women from becoming tied movers.     

Public assistance receipt among immigrants and natives: How the unit of analysis affects research findings

Differences between immigrant and native households in rates of welfare receipt depend on nativity differences in individual-level rates of receipt, in household size, in mean number of recipients in receiving households, and in household nativity composition. We present algebraic derivations of these relationships and use data from the 1990 and 1991 panels of the Survey of Income and Program Participation to examine empirically the extent to which levels of welfare receipt for immigrants and natives are sensitive to the use of household-, family-, or individual-level units of analysis or presentation. The findings show that nativity differences are statistically significant only at the level of larger units. The results also indicate that if immigrants and natives had identical living arrangements, immigrants' household-level receipt of Supplemental Security Income would significantly exceed natives' receipt even more than it actually does, but the nativity difference in receipt of Aid to Families with Dependent Children (AFDC) would reverse directions. Moreover, the level of AFDC receipt of immigrant households falls significantly below that of native households when native-born children living in households headed by immigrants are treated as if they were foreign born.     

Giving to family versus giving to the community within and across generations

In this paper, we examine the impact of parental giving on the transfer behavior of adult children to family members and community institutions using unique data from the Indonesian Family Life Surveys. Our findings point to persistence of private transfer networks across generations. In particular, the community transfer decisions of adults living outside origin households are positively influenced by the origin household’s community giving. We also investigate the relationship between household transfers to family and community networks. We find that unobserved heterogeneity in giving to family members and community organizations is positively correlated, suggesting important complementarities between transfer networks.     

农民工汇款与家庭收入不平等:基于反事实收入的分析

本文利用来自于农村劳动力输出大省湖北省的调研数据来考察农民工汇款对输出地家庭收入不平等的影响。研究结果表明,当我们简单将农民工汇款看成外生的转移收入时,农民工汇款能改善农村家庭的收入不平等状况。不过,当考虑到农村劳动力外出务工的选择性,并通过引入工具变量来构建那些外出劳动力户的反事实收入时,我们会得到相反的结论:由于那些外出务工劳动力往往来自于经济状况较好的家庭,农民工汇款扩大了农村家庭的收入不平等状况,家庭人均收入的基尼系数从反事实收入情形下的0.3551上升至实际收入情形下的0.3774。     

Land and leña: linking transnational migration, natural resources, and the environment in Guatemala

This article examines the relationships between international migration, natural resources, and the environment. Rather than looking at environmental change as a cause of population movements, the article reveals how migration affects the environment in sending countries. Empirically, we rely on a case study in Guatemala. Although migrants and cash remittances make significant contributions to Guatemala’s changing economy, little is known about the relationships between migration and the environment in this Central American country—a country, which continues to have a large rural population and that relies heavily on its natural resources. Drawing on ethnographic research and household surveys in a Maya community, we reveal how migrants and their earnings, as well as their ideas, behavior and attitudes, affect land use, land cover, and firewood use. We reveal, for example, how in addition to investments in land for home building and pick-up trucks to help improve agricultural production, some migrant households purchase more land and often dedicate it to the cultivation of vegetable crops for local and foreign markets. Cultural practices and beliefs directly linked to land and the environment, particularly maize cultivation, also alter due to migration processes. And, despite the ability of migrant households to transition to more efficient fuels like liquid propane gas (LPG), we show how they continue to use firewood. In all, the study contributes important insights into the environmental implications of migration.     

Rural out-migration and smallholder agriculture in the southern Ecuadorian Andes

This study investigates the consequences of out-migration and migrant remittances for smallholder agriculture in a rural and environmentally marginal study area in the southern Ecuadorian Andes. Migration and remittances have the potential for transformative impacts on agriculture in origin areas of migration due to consequent declines in labor availability and increases in income, but previous studies have primarily found mixed and weak effects. This study provides additional insight by considering the gender and destination of migrants, key factors given gender norms influencing participation in agriculture, and the large gap in remittances sent by internal and international migrants. Building on recent methodological innovations, the study uses original household survey data and multivariate statistical models to examine the consequences of migration and remittances for multiple agricultural outcomes, including maize production, agrodiversity, female participation in agriculture, and the use of land, labor, and chemical inputs. Consistent with previous studies, the results indicate that migration and remittances have mixed and countervailing effects on smallholder agriculture. Specifically, out-migration has lost-labor effects that differ between men and women, and international remittances have investment-promotion effects that result in increased maize production. Together, the results highlight the resilience of smallholder agriculture in the face of dramatic demographic change.     

Hebrew language usage: determinants and effects on earnings among immigrants in Israel

This paper uses the 1983 Census of Israel to analyze Hebrew speaking skills and the effects of Hebrew fluency on the earnings of adult male immigrants. Hebrew fluency increases with a longer duration in Israel, the presence of children in the household, marrying after immigration, living in an area in which a smaller proportion speak one‘s mother tongue, a younger age at migration, a higher level of schooling and varies by country of birth. Earnings increase monotonically with the use of Hebrew. Speaking English as a second language is associated with higher earnings, even when country of origin is held constant. Received: 9 June 1997/Accepted: 6 November 1997     

Emigration Rates From Sample Surveys: An Application to Senegal

What is the emigration rate of a country, and how reliable is that figure? Answering these questions is not at all straightforward. Most data on international migration are census data on foreign-born population. These migrant stock data describe the immigrant population in destination countries but offer limited information on the rate at which people leave their country of origin. The emigration rate depends on the number leaving in a given period and the population at risk of leaving, weighted by the duration at risk. Emigration surveys provide a useful data source for estimating emigration rates, provided that the estimation method accounts for sample design. In this study, emigration rates and confidence intervals are estimated from a sample survey of households in the Dakar region in Senegal, which was part of the Migration between Africa and Europe survey. The sample was a stratified two-stage sample with oversampling of households with members abroad or return migrants. A combination of methods of survival analysis (time-to-event data) and replication variance estimation (bootstrapping) yields emigration rates and design-consistent confidence intervals that are representative for the study population.     

人口流动家庭化及其影响因素——以北京市为例

文章基于2006年北京市1‰流动人口抽样调查,考察北京市流动人口的家庭模式及其流动家庭化的影响因素。调查结果显示,北京市流动人口的家庭化率已达到60%。流动人口家庭模式是以一对夫妻户和一对夫妻加孩子户为主的核心家庭为主导,以一代户和二代户为主。3/4的已婚流动人口携带了配偶,有孩子的流动人口中有一半携带了孩子,这些孩子中有近20%是在北京出生的。流动人口的平均家庭规模为2人,明显小于全国农村的平均家庭规模(3.4人)。流动人口的个人特征及在京居住地显著影响人口流动家庭化,同时还发现非经济因素成为比经济因素更为重要的人口流动家庭化影响因素。     

U.S. Family Household Momentum and Dynamics: An Extension and Application of the ProFamy Method

The classic headship-rate method for demographic projections of households is not linked to demographic rates, projects a few household types without size, and does not deal with household members other than heads. By comparison, the ProFamy method uses demographic rates as input and projects more detailed household types, sizes, and living arrangements for all members of the population. Tests of projections from 1990 to 2000 using ProFamy and based on observed U.S. demographic rates before 1991 show that discrepancies between our projections and census observations in 2000 are reasonably small, validating the new method. Using data from national surveys and vital statistics, census microfiles, and the ProFamy method, we prepare projections of U.S. households from 2000 to 2050. Medium projections as well as projections based on smaller and larger family scenarios with corresponding combinations of assumptions of marriage/union formation and dissolution, fertility, mortality, and international migration are performed to analyze future trends of U.S. households and their possible higher and lower bounds, as well as enormous racial differentials. To our knowledge, the household projections reported in this article are the first to have found empirical evidence of family household momentum and to have provided informative low and high bounds of various indices of projected future households and living arrangements distributions based on possible changes in demographic parameters.