Micro‐Level Determinants of Remittances from Recent Migrants to Canada

Despite considerable interest in remittances to developing countries, the limited availability of large sample data has constrained aspects of our understanding of remitter behaviour. This paper utilizes data from Statistics Canada’s Longitudinal Survey of Immigrants to Canada (LSIC) to investigate how the demographic characteristics of recent immigrants influence their remittance levels shortly after their arrival in Canada. We identify several hypotheses and use a Tobit model to estimate the impact of individual characteristics on remittance choices. As expected, remittances rise with incomes, age and falls with the size of the migrating family, housing costs and education. We also estimate how remittances are affected by other characteristics, such as gender, marital status, religion, region of origin, region of settlement and attitudes towards home and host communities.