Migration and Family Dynamics

Abstract

Temporary migration tends to affect family economies in at least two ways: the outflow of indispensable family resources to meet the expenses incurred in the migration process, referred to as the ‘economic cost of migration’, and the transfer in cash or kind from migrants to their non-migrating families, known as ‘migrant remittances’. Given the rising cost of migration, debt has been critical to labour migration: where else can aspiring migrants from a developing country find the thousands of dollars they need to secure a work visa for Singapore? Potential migrant families often borrow cash from money lenders and relatives, pawn family assets, and sell or mortgage family farmland to raise the money to migrate. This reduces regular family incomes and damages the economic base of the family. The outflow of family resources from relatively impoverished sections of society has been thoroughly discussed in Chap. 4. Chapter 6 addressed the inflow of remittances to migrant families as a social process and highlighted four spheres of remittances—transfer, receipt, control, and use. This chapter addresses the impacts of migration and remittances on migrant and non-migrant families with special reference to family development dynamics.