Send Money Home Research Articles

Sending money home in times of crime: the case of Mexico

ABSTRACTWe explore at the municipality level how the climate of criminal violence has affected the flow of remittances to Mexico. Using a panel of municipalities in the years 2006 and 2010, we find that drug-related crimes and overall rates of homicides have reduced the percentage of families that receive remittances. This result is robust to controlling for net migration, political variables, and traditional socioeconomic explanations of remittance sending. It is also robust to potential threats to validity. We interpret this result as suggestive of self-interested concerns when sending money home amidst a climate of rampant violence. Nonetheless, mixed motivations to remit are evident in our analysis.

Do remittances improve income inequality? An instrumental variable quantile analysis of the Kenyan case

The impact of remittances on income inequality constitutes a keenly debated topic in the development literature. Yet, a consensus still has not evolved on the issue. This paper explores the argument that the adverse distributional impact of remittances obtained by a number of studies could partially be due to the failure to control for existing differentials in the ability to migrate. We test the impact of remittances on household expenditures using data from the Kenyan Migration Household Survey and employing an instrumental variable quantile regression model to control for the unequal access to migration of rich and poor households. Our results indicate that while remittances increase household expenditure at all levels of the expenditure distribution, the impact is unambiguously greatest for poorer households. Hence, remittances, in and of themselves, improve both poverty and the distribution of income. This suggests that if remittances are to provide an impetus to development, recipient economies need to alleviate the credit constraints that restrict access to migration for the poor and the ability to send money home once the access bar has been overcome.

IMPACT OF REMITTANCES ON EXPORT PERFORMANCE : TIME SERIES EVIDENCE FROM PAKISTAN

Purpose:This study analyzes the relationship between Remittance and Exports by using 32 years timeseries data from the period 1981 to 2012. Methodology:This study includes Regression analysis OLS, Granger causality test, , Eigenvalue test, stability analysis ,Augmented DickyFuller tests ,Error correction model , cointegaration and sensitivity analysis. Finding:The results show the negative effect of remittance on exports in the long run in Pakistan which is completely against previous studies to date. Implications:The Government of Pakistan should lower the barriers to remittance flows and reduce the transaction cost for migrants who send money home and make export market more competitive to have significant positive impact of remittances on export.

Remittances and immigration enforcement

Abstract Recent increases in U.S. immigration enforcement at the local and state level may be impacting remittance flows to developing countries by curtailing undocumented immigration, restricting the cyclicality of migration flows and limiting employment opportunities for the undocumented. We examine how the remitting patterns of Mexican migrants in the United States are being impacted by two types of immigration enforcement policies: police-based initiatives, such as 287(g) agreements and Secure Communities, and employment-based programs, as is the case with employment verification mandates. We find that increased enforcement reduces the share of migrants sending money home. However, legal migrants remitting money home increase their money outflows enough to offset any reductions in remittance payments from their undocumented counterparts. As a result, the average dollar amount remitted per Mexican migrant rises in the midst of increased uncertainty, safeguarding remittances as one of the least volatile sources of income in the developing world.

Separation from family and its impact on the mental health of Sudanese refugees in Australia: a qualitative study

This study explored the impact of separation from family members on the mental health and wellbeing of Sudanese refugees in Australia, and the coping strategies used. In-depth interviews were conducted with Sudanese community representatives and health workers, primary and mental health care practitioners, health service managers and policy makers. Interviews were analysed using thematic analysis. Separation was perceived as having a negative impact on the mental health of Sudanese refugees in Australia, and manifested in concern about the safety of relatives abroad and in changing roles. The pressure to send money home emerged as a high priority for Sudanese refugees, often superseding local concerns. Several strategies were used to bridge the separation gap, including maintaining contact through the use of information communication technologies, and family-reunification. Separation from family can be an ongoing source of stress and sadness among refugees in countries such as Australia. While resettling refugees are actively taking steps to cope with the impact of separation, awareness of the issue in mainstream services appears to be low. Separation from family continues to affect refugees' lives in countries of resettlement. While it may be difficult to alter the course of the monumental circumstances that cause forced migration, service providers can support refugees' coping abilities by understanding these global-local intersections.

Contested Representations of Remittances and the Transnational Family

This paper deals with the changing idea of money and the transnational Indian family across generations and life stages. It draws on a qualitative study of 38 first and second generation Indian migrants to Australia. For first generation migrants, sending money home is one of the important ways of expressing belonging and care for the transnational family. Over time, the remittances become contested in terms of their value and their equivalence to physical care, raising questions of belonging. With multiple migrants, the family centres on Australia, which now becomes the source country when children migrate elsewhere. Money and gifts are sent home to Australia or to other countries. The nuclear family is the main reference point for most of our second generation migrants, but there remain some gift exchanges with extended family and charitable donations. These donations reflect a sense of ancestry rather than the locus of family. Hence accounts of sending money to India need to be supplemented by studies of the diffusion of the transnational family across different nodes of the diaspora. The study of remittances has to reflect this diffusion and change in the transnational family if it is to adequately explain how money is the medium of family relationships.

The Role of Altruism in Sending and Spending Remittances

We investigate the effects of altruism on migrants’ decisions to send money home and on their households’ decisions to invest or to consume those remittances. Previous studies have devoted extensive attention to migrants’ altruism toward recipients and little to recipients’altruism toward migrants. We find that the migrant sends larger remittances home when he feels more altruistic toward other household members, while he may send nothing if he feels less altruistic. We also find that other household members in the home country likely consume rather than invest remittances if they are highly altruistic toward the migrant. Our results may partially explain why countries receiving large remittances do not always make large investments, and suggest that altruism among household members does not necessarily enhance a country’s development and growth through remittances.

Gender, Transnational Networks and Remittances: Evidence from Germany

Remittances from Germany are substantial. Cross-border transfers to family and friendship networks outside Germany are not only made by foreigners. Many naturalized migrants send money home as well. Here, we focus on transnational networks and gender-specific determinants of remittances from the senders’ perspective, based on data from the German Socio-Economic Panel Study (SOEP) for the years 2001-2006. Our findings show, above all, that foreign women remit less than foreign men. Using information on the social network in the home country we find, first, that the social network abroad explains part of gender differences in remittance behavior. Second, employing gender interaction terms for the social network effects suggests that remittance behavior is affected by traditional gender roles. Third social integration into the destination country matters. Remittance decisions of naturalized migrants do not show the aforementioned gender effect.

Bilateral Remittance Flows, Institutional Quality and Individual Happiness: Macro and Micro Level Analysis

Migrants sending money home are an important part of millions of people around the world where remittances play a direct role on the livelihoods of receiving households. In the country level analysis, this paper explores the determinants of bilateral remittance flows using a novel dataset published by Ratha and Shaw(2005). Bilateral remittance flows are modeled with gravity equation variables first, and we find highly dependable results. New to the literature, we also explore that cultural differences, proxied by cross-religion dummies, are important in explaining bilateral remittance flows between low income countries. More importantly, this paper attempts to answer whether institutional quality and life satisfaction levels of the sending country play a role in the patterns of bilateral remittances flows. The results indicate that various institutional quality measurements including government functioning, freedom of speech, civil rights, individual rights and rule of law are highly significant. In particular, the quality of institutions of sending country are found highly important in modeling the patterns of the remittance flows between high income countries. In addition to the quality of institutions, life satisfaction levels of sending countries are highly significant in explaining the bilateral remittance flows. In the individual level analysis, using German Socio-Economic panel, GSOEP, we find that immigrants are sending less money back home when they fell like more German and when they are dwelling owners. Just like in macro level findings, immigrants send more money back home when they are more happy in the country they are residing, and they trust more to the institutions of the country of origin.

Emerging Voices: Experiences of Underrepresented Asian Americans (review)

Reviewed by: Emerging Voices: Experiences of Underrepresented Asian Americans Keith Quincy (bio) Emerging Voices: Experiences of Underrepresented Asian Americans, edited by Huping Ling. New Brunswick, N.J.: Rutgers University Press, 2008. ix + 265 pp. $25.95 paper. ISBN 978-0-8135-4341-3. Emerging Voices is a rewarding book. Writing about lesser-known Asian immigrants, the authors try to bring the reader up to speed quickly, saying much in a short space about the immigrants' history in Asia and their situation in America. The fourteen chapters are easily accessible to the general reader as well as to the specialist and offer a gold mine of information and insight. To my mind, the jewel of the book is Todd LeRoy Perreira's essay "The Gender of Practice." Perreira has a knack for insight, a philosophical flare. He wrestles with an odd statistic. Almost 70 percent of Thai immigrant women marry non-Thai men. More than a quarter marry non-Asians. These women tend to be poorly educated, yet marry men with good educations. How do they attract these men? Is it because Thai women are beautiful? Yes they are, but that's not the answer. What makes them a catch is their Buddhism. Thai women are kind and loving. They deal gracefully with life's problems. What is ironic is that these things are not the hallmarks of Thai Buddhism, or at least the Buddhism of the monks. According to the monks, what counts is meditation and enlightenment as well as giving to the temples, and the monks build up credit for the next life. This has a familiar ring. The Catholic church once forgave sins for a donation of money. This was a main reason Martin Luther left the church, which kicked off the Reformation. Ordinary people do not like the idea of salvation as a business deal. Perreira says Thai women agree, so they have created their own version of Buddhism. Good works and loving deeds are spiritually credit-worthy. This is a Buddhism they can admire. Perreira wonders if the wisdom of ordinary people is not as valid a road as any to religious truth. He is in good company. There is a fable in Plato's Protagoras.1 When the gods created living beings, they gave survival skills to the [End Page 107] species—speed, strength, and so forth. By the time it was the humans' turn, the gods had run out of skills to give. So they taught humankind to compensate for their frailty with tools. And wise Zeus gave them the skill of morality so they would stop fighting and cooperate. He did not distribute this skill in the normal way, which is unevenly, with a few having great talent and the rest almost none. How could there be community if only a few were moral and the rest savage as beasts? So the distribution was equal. No experts, just amateurs who pool what little they know to discover what is right. The lesson? Learning morality is like learning your native tongue. The whole community is your teacher. The example of the Thai women and their Buddhism suggests that perhaps religious truth is found the same way. In this connection, we learn from Jiemin Bao how Thai women give prostitution a religious twist. In Thailand, poverty forces poor daughters into prostitution. And there is a lot of it because of the ferretlike womanizing of Thai men. Yet the stigma of prostitution loses its sting when the women send money home to help their families and earn credit with donations to temples. And there is a revenge of sorts on the womanizers once Thai women are in America. American culture backs them up when they rein in their philandering Thai husbands or send them packing when they don't reform. Before military thugs took over, Burmese women were the peers of their men. Tamara C. Ho says men even conceded women were superior in running a business and making the big decisions of life (187). In America, Burmese women reclaim their independence by drawing strength from their Buddhism, which is certainly a healthy antidote to the endless ads that swarm with purring women mindlessly rubbing against...

Remittances as Social Exchange: The Critical, Changing Role of Family as the Social Network

Remittances from immigrants in developed countries to their families back home constitute economic flows nearly comparable to the levels of foreign direct investment and greater than those of international aid. Even those who immigrate due to political strife (refugees) are likely to leave loved ones behind and to send money home, if it is feasible. This article looks at remittances as only one type of social exchange within the relevant social network (the family). A categorization of immigrants is presented (expatriates, sojourners, and pathfinders) based on their motives for emigrating and used, subsequently, to explain their relative propensities to remit. The article ends by discussing the implications that the changing nature of the family institution globally may have for the flow of remittances in the future.

Sending money home: a mixed-Methods study of remittances by migrant nurses in Ireland

BackgroundThis paper presents data on the remittances sent by migrant nurses to their families "back home". It gives voice to the experiences of migrant nurses and illustrates the financial obligations they maintain while working overseas. Although the international economic recession has decreased global remittance flows, they remain resilient. Drawing on the experiences of migrant nurses in Ireland, this paper indicates how and why migrants strive to maintain remittance flows, even in an economic downturn.MethodsA mixed-methods approach was employed, and the paper draws on data from qualitative in-depth interviews undertaken with 21 migrant nurses in addition to a quantitative survey of 336 migrant nurses in Ireland.ResultsThe survey of migrant nurses revealed that 87% (293) of the sample sent remittances on a regular basis. According to respondents, remittances made a huge difference in the lives of their family members back home. Remittances were used to ensure that family members could obtain access to health and education services. They were also used to provide an income source for family members who were unemployed or retired.As remittances played an essential role in supporting family members back home, respondent migrant nurses were reluctant to reduce the level of their remittances, despite the onset of a global recession. Respondents noted that an increased demand for remittances from their families coincided with a reduction in their own net salaries – as a result of increased taxes and reduced availability of overtime – and this was a cause for concern for Ireland's migrant nurses.ConclusionThis paper provides insights into the importance of remittances in funding social support for family members in home countries. It also illustrates the sacrifices made by migrant nurses to ensure continuation of the remittances, particularly in the context of an economic recession.

Migrants' remittances and mobile transfer in emerging markets

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to analyze the solutions provided by mobile money transfer (MMT) technology to facilitate migrants' remittances to their home country. The paper seeks to identify the main difficulties faced by migrants when sending money home and how mobile money addresses them. It also seeks to understand how some telecom companies have managed to be successful in their implementation of MMT services in emerging markets.Design/methodology/approachThe paper presents two successful cases of mobile money service in the Philippines and in Kenya and analyses the MMT Initiative, a lobbying group in which telecom companies gather to secure their position on the market. It is based on data collected from internet sources, articles, reports and case studies.FindingsOwing to their size, remittances have a massive impact on developing countries economies, communities and individuals. The market's large potential attracts vast number of telecom companies rushing to get the first move advantage. The study of the two examples explains their success through their ability to adapt to local needs taking in consideration cultural, economical and distribution systems specificities. If social benefits are provided through integration of part of local population in the economical life, profit‐oriented business strategies pursued might be dangerous on a longer term.Practical implicationsThis study identifies successful business models. While similarities in lack of infrastructure of developing countries favors generalization, international expansion will only be made possible by real transnational strategy adapted to local needs.Originality/valueThis paper demonstrates how implementation of new technologies can provide social benefits in emerging markets. It encourages entrepreneurs to strongly take into consideration local responsiveness in order to be able to achieve sustainable growth.

Haiti: Hope Turns to Ashes

When Junia Andrieux entered a money transfer agency in Miami's Little Haiti neighborhood on a recent Friday afternoon, the place was nearly empty, save for one other person ahead of her in line and a couple others being served by two clerks behind glass windows. Andrieux waited briefly, gave her brother's address in Haiti, and handed over $40, plus the service fee. She was in and out in less than 10 minutes a fairly quick time for a routine that, until recently, would have taken much longer to complete. Lines used to snake around the black velvet ropes and out the door. But there haven't been long lines lately at Caribbean Air Mail money transfer, UniTransfer, Western Union, and the lesserknown companies that dot the Caribbean immigrant neighborhoods of South Florida and serve as lifelines for families separated by oceans. Fewer customers are sending money home, and those who do are sending a lot less.

A Global Perspective on Migration and Development

On a phone booth in Manchester, England — where I now live as a transmigrant — I saw an advertisement that read: ‘Send money home from closer to home.’ It went on to announce that you can send funds to locations around the world from any British Post Office. The Post Office, whose sales operations have now been privatized, has joined businesses around the world that seek to profit from migrant remittances. Spanish banks extend mortgages to migrants living in Spain who are building houses ‘back home’ in Ecuador and elsewhere in Latin America, while appliance stores in Brazil process orders for customers whose source of payment comes from family members living abroad (Lapper, 2007a). Migrants’ money transfers, purchases of costly commodities, and homeland investments figure large in the recent policies of powerful globe-spanning financial institutions, such as the World Bank, which have proclaimed migrant remitters as the new agents of international development (De Haas, 2007; Fajnzylber and Humberto Lopez, 2008; Lapper, 2007b; World Bank, 2006). Meanwhile, researchers of development and migration, while noting the possibilities and contradictions of migrant remittances on sending and receiving localities, take for granted that migrants are both local and transnational actors (Faist, 2008; Fauser, Chapter 6 in this volume). Yet at the same time that the transnationality of migrants is being both routinely documented and celebrated, politicians and the mass media in Europe and the United States are focusing their concern primarily on questions of ‘integration’, portraying migrants’ transnational ties as threats to ‘national security’.

Development vs. Terrorism: Money Transfers and EU Financial Regulations in the UK

This article considers recent developments in the campaign to combat terrorist financing in Europe and the intersection of these measures with the flow of migrant remittances from the European Union (EU) to third countries. Migrants frequently leave behind families that they expect to support from their earnings. Measures to combat the financing of terrorism (CFT) and the related increase in anti-money laundering (AML) regulation make it increasingly expensive for migrants to share their wages with the family left behind. The result is a tension between the desire of migrant labour to send money home and fears of insecurity against the financing of terrorism. This issue is considered in the context of the new Regulation ‘On Information on the Payer Accompanying Transfers of Funds’ (Regulation (EC) No. 1781/2006).

The Costs and Benefits of Migration to Sending States: the More You Look, the Worse It Gets

The Costs and Benefits of Migration to Sending States: the More You Look, the Worse It Gets

Remittances, transaction costs, and informality

Recorded workers' remittances to developing countries reached $167 billion in 2005, bringing increasing attention to these flows as a potential tool for development. In this paper, we explore the determinants of remittances and their associated transaction costs. We find that recorded remittances depend positively on the stock of migrants and negatively on transfer costs and exchange rate restrictions. In turn, transfer costs are lower when financial systems are more developed and exchange rates less volatile. The negative impact of transactions costs on remittances suggests that migrants either refrain from sending money home or else remit through informal channels when costs are high. We provide evidence from household surveys supportive of a sizeable informal sector.

Sold (review)

Reviewed by: Sold Karen Coats McCormick, Patricia Sold. Hyperion, 2006263p ISBN 0-7868-5171-6$15.99 R* Gr. 9-12 Although thirteen-year-old Lakshmi leads a hard and tenuous life in her poor Nepali village, she still finds pleasure in the beauty of her surroundings and the love of her mother. She wishes to go to the city to work as a maid so that she can send money home to help her mother and brother, but her stepfather's gambling habit sets her on a different path: he sells her for 800 rupees. Still thinking she is to be a maid, Lakshmi is confused when it begins to dawn on her that she has been sold once again, this time for 10,000 rupees, to a brothel in Calcutta. Lakshmi's nightmare begins with her being beaten and starved for refusing to cooperate, and then drugged while she is taken by multiple men. Resigned to her fate, she resolves to keep close track of her income so that she will know when she has paid off her debt to Mumtaz, the cruel mistress of the brothel. She soon learns, however, that Mumtaz has no intention of honoring that bargain, and that she must take her chances on a strange American who pays for her services but only wants to ask her questions and offer her freedom. The brief chapter-like vignettes of detached sentences are richly resonant with images by turns luminous, haunting, and horrifying, and within them Lakshmi's story unfolds with grim immediacy. Amidst the harrowing circumstances, Lakshmi experiences small acts of kindness from the other girls, their [End Page 181] children, and the kind boy who delivers their tea; these moments of grace serve more than anything to bring her situation into ghastly relief. Readers can't help but be moved by Lakshmi's fate; she gives a powerful and heartbreakingly lyrical voice to the hope, the hopelessness, and most of all, the humanity of the victims of the sex slave trade. A brief but informative author's note follows the text. Copyright © 2006 The Board of Trustees of the University of Illinois

Global Transactions: Sudanese Refugees Sending Money Home

This paper draws on ethnographic research in America and Ethiopia to explore the phenomenon of Sudanese (Nuer) refugee remittance from those in the diaspora to those who remain behind in Africa. Specifically it locates the unidirectional flow of cash within transnational flows of people, goods, and information. This multi-sited study explores the impacts of these transfers on both sides of the equation. It documents the importance of remittances as a vital component of survival and investment in the future for Nuer refugees in Ethiopia. Similarly it raises questions about the siphoning off of resources on the social, cultural, and economic integration of Sudanese in the United States. Finally, it situates remitting behaviour within a broader socio-historical context to explain its centrality in maintaining a Nuer community across national borders.