GENDER AND THE REMITTANCE PROCESS

This study explores and suggests a methodological approach to the gender dimensions of remittances. It argues that remittances should be seen as a social process and examined in relation to (i) the sending side, (ii) the recipient side and (iii) gendered use of remittances by the households. Focusing on Indonesian domestic workers in Singapore, Malaysia and Hong Kong, and migrant households in Central Java, it explores the gender dimensions of remittance-sending, receiving, control and use, and their development implications. Despite their lower incomes, female domestic workers remit a greater share of their earnings than their male counterparts; they tend to remit to their mothers and sisters rather than to fathers, brothers and husbands. Close to half of the recipients exercise discretion over the use of remittances; female recipients tend to use remittances to invest in human capital and male recipients, in physical capital.     

THE INTERSECTIONS OF GENDER AND GENERATION IN ALBANIAN MIGRATION, REMITTANCES AND TRANSNATIONAL CARE

The Albanian case represents the most dramatic instance of post-communist migration: about one million Albanians, a quarter of the country's total population, are now living abroad, most of them in Greece and Italy, with the UK becoming increasingly popular since the late 1990s. This paper draws on three research projects based on fieldwork in Italy, Greece, the UK and Albania. These projects have involved in-depth interviews with Albanian migrants in several cities, as well as with migrant-sending households in different parts of Albania. In this paper we draw out those findings which shed light on the intersections of gender and generations in three aspects of the migration process: the emigration itself, the sending and receiving of remittances, and the care of family members (mainly the migrants' elderly parents) who remain in Albania. Theoretically, we draw on the notion of 'gendered geographies of power' and on how spatial change and separation through migration reshapes gender and generational relations. We find that, at all stages of the migration, Albanian migrants are faced with conflicting and confusing models of gender, behavioural and generational norms, as well as unresolved questions about their legal status and the likely economic, social and political developments in Albania, which make their future life plans uncertain. Legal barriers often prevent migrants and their families from enjoying the kinds of transnational family lives they would like.     

OLDER-AGE PARENTS IN RURAL CAMBODIA AND MIGRATION OF ADULT CHILDREN

This study examines links between migration status and location of adult children and measures associated with the well-being of older parents. Data come from older adults born between 1940 and 1950 living in a region in northwest Cambodia near the Thai border with good access to Phnom Penh. Analyses are conducted from the perspectives of the older adult and adult children. Results show that high rates of out-migration do not leave their older parents without alternative means of support. Migrant children often remain in contact by telephone. Most adult children remit money to their parents, but the majority of remittances are small. While large remittances are atypical, adult children living in Phnom Penh or across the border in Thailand are more likely to provide substantial amounts. The analysis presents a picture of an area where people are on the move but families still share resources and time with older adults.     

MARRIAGE MIGRANTS AS EMIGRANTS

This article examines the emigration dimension of marriage migration in Asia by focusing on remittances received by parents from daughters who married and migrated abroad. Based on a study of 250 migrant-sending households in Vietnam with a daughter living in an Asian country as a ‘foreign wife’, the analysis provides empirical evidence that emigrant spouses make substantial financial contributions to their natal families through remittances. A multivariate analysis of the determinants of remittance-sending shows that a woman's characteristics and living conditions abroad largely determine whether or not she remits, while the relative poverty level of her natal family has limited influence. Findings call for a broader conceptualization of ‘women who marry foreigners’ or ‘foreign brides’ as emigrants who contribute to the social development of their sending countries.     

从国际侨汇新动向看我国侨汇政策

近 3 0多年来 ,国际侨汇的数量急剧增长 ,侨汇的作用也发生了重大变化。据国际基金组织 2 0 0 0年度国际收支报告 ,目前全球侨汇总额已超过 1 0 0 0亿美元 ,约为 3 0年前的 5 0倍 ,其中60 %流向发展中国家。印度侨汇每年多达 1 0 0亿美元 ,高居榜首 ,紧跟其后的是墨西哥和菲律宾等发展中国家。值得注意的是 ,在许多发展中国家利用侨汇发展经济的时候 ,中国对侨汇工作却由于外资输入的不断增加而有所忽视。中国 1 982 1 999年 1 8年的侨汇收入总额只有 1 1 0亿美元 ,仅相当于印度1 999年一年的侨汇收入。笔者认为 ,我国有关部门应当关注侨汇工作 ,充分认识侨汇资源的重要意义 ,采取有效措施 ,更好地为经济建设服务。     

Migration and left-behind parents and children of migrants in Cambodia: a look at household composition and the economic situation

ABSTRACT

This paper examines composition of households formed after the outmigration of a household member in rural Cambodian and correlates household types with indicators of economic condition. The paper focuses on households containing left-behind parents and the children of migrants. Excess mortality in the 1970s due to war suggests the association between migration and economic condition may be gendered. This could be exacerbated when migration leads to a skip-generation household containing a left-behind parent and a child of migrant without an own parent of the child present. Data come from the Cambodian Rural-Urban Migration Project (CRUMP), a project designed to study migration in rural Cambodia. Most households formed after a migration contain a left-behind parent of migrant. While about 22 per cent of these households contain a left-behind child of migrant, the per cent is over 60 per cent when the migrant is themselves a parent. The economic situation tends to be worst for left behind solo mothers (mothers of migrants who do not live with a spouse) and best for left-behind coupled parents of migrants. There is evidence that the combination of left-behind solo mothers living with children of migrants in a skip-generation situation is the most disadvantaged.     

THE IMPACT OF REMITTANCES ON REGIONAL CONSUMPTION AND INVESTMENT

This paper examines the effects of international remittances on regional economic development using spatial data from an original household survey carried out in the Republic of Moldova. I analyze remittance flows with a model that estimates regional (urban and rural) budget shares of consumption and investment expenditure categories for rural and urban households. An important contribution of the paper is that it analyzes the effect of remittances in the regions where spending takes place, which is not necessarily the same as the region where the households originating this spending reside. Using the multinomial logit approach, I control for potential selectivity and endogeneity biases of remittances. The results show that remittances lead to significantly increasing marginal productive investments in urban regions at the expense of rural regions. The fundamental finding of the study is that remittances influence the flight of productive capital out of rural areas into urban regions (a pattern similar to the crowding‐out effect of the Dutch Disease). The analysis carried out in this paper can be applied to other temporary income transfers and exogenous spending injected in the region that affect households' regional expenditure patterns.     

基于农户视角的农区发展研究

基于河南省11村的1251农户调查数据的分析表明:①农村发展的主要障碍是资金缺乏以及农区发展环境约束,农民自身素能(如缺乏技术、文化水平低等)也有一定影响。②农区发展中最希望得到的外部支持是给项目建厂或提供资金支持,还有一些农户期望政府提供其他发展生产上的帮助。③农户对未来的期望以改善生活条件为主,且随着未来时间段的变长,他们的总体期望变得更加模糊。④多数农户(占样本71.58%)对其生活现状"基本满意"或"满意"。⑤农户对其发展的考虑,受多种因素的影响。其中家庭收入状况、受教育水平、地理环境等的作用更为明显。基于农户视角对农区发展的分析,对有关农区发展政策的设计有借鉴意义。     

Migrant household homeownership outcomes in large Chinese cities - the sustained impact of hukou

Homeownership by migrant households in large Chinese cities is increasingly evident and sometimes blamed for driving up local housing prices. Hukou reform grants local hukou to migrants in small cities while it allows large cities to set up hukou entry barriers to control migration. This paper explores whether migrant households’ micro-level characteristics and macro-level urban policies relating to hukou reform have any impact on their housing tenure choices. Using data from a 2009 survey of migrant households in six large cities, this study adopts logistic regression models to examine factors influencing labor migrant households’ tenure decisions. We find that household income and head of household hukou type, contribution to pension fund, and enrollment in health insurance all positively predict homeownership. Migrant households are more likely to be found in cities with larger population size. We argue that city entry barriers create new forms of institutional haves and have-nots and new forms of inequality. The sustained impact of previous hukou types suggests inherited inequalities through intergenerational wealth transfer, which calls for targeted welfare policies to mediate.     

Non-economic Bases of Economic Behaviour: The Consumption,Investment and Exchange Patterns of Three Emigrant Communities in Kerala,India

This article takes issue with the rational choice approach that views the economy as an autonomous realm where isolated individuals make maximizing choices in terms of their personal preferences. The argument made is that income generation, consumption and exchange form a holistic complex that must be studied in its unity and that the economy and individual economic behaviour are articulated with a social context. This is demonstrated by evidence (collected through fieldwork) on the differences in the use of remittances by three villages in Kerala, India, which have experienced large scale migration to the Middle Eastern countries. In the three cases, it was the way in which income earned from international migration was perceived, together with the variation in ethnic structures, that explained the similarities and differences in their consumption, exchange and investment patterns. In each case, it was the larger ethnic structure that conditioned (1) the types of activities into which the money was channelled; (2) the range of people who were the beneficiaries of migrant remittances; (3) the patterns of reciprocity or charity practised by the migrants; (4) the selection of the trade-off point between community status and economic accumulation; and; (5) the groups of individuals who gained or lost economic control.     

Longitudinal determinants of married women’s autonomy in Egypt

This article explores determinants of women’s autonomy in Egypt around the beginning of the ‘Arab Spring’ in 2011. We show that women’s autonomy over time is a product not only of their individual characteristics, but also of the household and community environment in which they live. Using the 2006 and 2012 Egyptian Labor Market Panel Survey (ELMPS) and multilevel models, results demonstrate that women’s autonomy changes over time. There are large and consistent variations in women’s autonomy by household region of residence and wealth. For example, women in the rural and urban Upper Egypt region are less autonomous than women in the Cairo region, and women in wealthier households are less autonomous compared to the poorest households. Programs aiming to increase women’s autonomy focus exclusively or primarily on women’s own characteristics. These results indicate that strategies to improve women’s autonomy should be mindful of the multiple dimensions of autonomy and have a programmatic focus on changing household and social environments.     

VARYING EFFECT OF FERTILITY DETERMINANTS AMONG MIGRANT AND INDIGENOUS FEMALES IN THE TRANSITIONAL AGRO-ECOLOGICAL ZONE OF GHANA

The transitional agro‐ecological zone of Ghana, located between the richly endowed south and the impoverished north, has attracted seasonal and permanent farm migrants, mainly from northern Ghana, who now live side by side with the indigenous people. While migrants have higher numbers of Muslims, indigenous people are mainly Christians. Although the majority of the migrants live in migrant quarters with less favourable socio‐economic conditions, they are more successful farmers and therefore wealthier. The objectives are to examine the varying effect of fertility determinants among migrants and indigenous females. This paper uses data collected in 2002 among 194 females aged 15 to 49 years. Multiple regression models are used to assess fertility determinants. Results show that although migrant households were wealthier, migrant females were more traditional. They had more children living in foster care, and a lower proportion of them approved of men participating in household activities. In addition, they were less well educated, recorded higher infant mortality, gave birth earlier and used less contraception. Furthermore, while a female's migration status is statistically significant so far as non‐proximate determinants of fertility are concerned, the same variable is not significant with respect to proximate determinants. In addition, a married female migrant would on average have almost one more child compared to her indigenous counterpart, and migrant females who had experienced the loss of a child would on average have 2.5 more children compared to their indigenous counterparts. Finally, more affluent migrant females have 0.08 fewer children compared to their indigenous counterpart.     

War,Livelihoods and Vulnerability in Sri Lanka

As the number of de‐stabilized regions of warfare or post‐war conditions worldwide continues to grow, this article investigates how civilians survive in the context of a civil war. It analyses livelihood strategies of farmers in the war‐torn areas of Sri Lanka, using an analytical framework based on a revised form of DFID's sustainable rural livelihoods approach, placing particular attention on the institutional reproduction of household capital assets in the war economy. The author delineates a three pillar model of household livelihood strategies focusing on how households (1) cope with the increased level of risk and uncertainty; (2) adjust their economic and social household assets for economic survival; and (3) use their social and political assets as livelihood strategies. Empirical evidence comes from four case study villages in the east of Sri Lanka. Although the four case studies were very close together geographically, their livelihood outcomes differed considerably depending on the very specific local political geography. The role of social and political assets is essential: while social assets (extended family networks) were important to absorb migrants, political assets (alliances with power holders) were instrumental in enabling individuals, households or economic actors to stabilize or even expand their livelihood options and opportunities. The author concludes that civilians in conflict situations are not all victims (some may also be culprits in the political economy of warfare), and that war can be both a threat and an opportunity, often at the same time.     

Drought,Domestic Budgeting and Wealth Distribution in Sahelian Households

Over the past twenty‐five years, Sahelian households have experienced recurrent harvest failure and greater reliance on remittances from migratory wage labour. Household subsistence has become less dependent on household grain stores and more on the liquidation of individual wealth stores. This study investigates how these broader changes have affected struggles between household members over obligations to support the household in the Zarmaganda region of western Niger. As the land‐derived leverage of male patriarchs has declined and household dependence on individual wealth stores has increased, domestic budgeting has become more contested. Household heads make case‐by‐case moral claims on other household members during times of grain shortage. Women and subordinate males invoke Islamic law, which accords primary provisioning responsibility to the household head, to protect their individual wealth in times of grain deficit. This article investigates the nature of these budgetary struggles, showing how individuals’ decisions to contribute individual wealth to support the household are best understood as highly situated, affected not only by the specific material conditions of the household but also the interplay of the moral, structural, and individualistic imperatives that derive from one’s position within the household. Using reconstructed livestock wealth histories for the members of fifty‐four households in western Niger, this study investigates the material consequences of these struggles. Male heads of corporate households, the historic managers of the household’s land and agricultural labour, have lost wealth relative to their wives and married male subordinates since the drought of 1984.     

THE IMPACT OF MIGRATION ON MOBILITY OF OTHER FAMILY MEMBERS IN THAILAND

The effect of initial migration of a household member on the subsequent migration of other household members is investigated. Previous research has documented the strong impact of migration experience in predicting future migration. This article builds on this experience by adopting a social network approach to explain the association between an initial migration from a household and the subsequent migration of other household members. Differentials in socio-economic characteristics of subsequent migrants and factors associated with the encouragement of subsequent migration by initial migrants are analysed. Longitudinal data from the Kanchanaburi Demographic Surveillance System, which allow for accurate modelling of the flow and pattern of subsequent migration, and which help to highlight the importance of household social networks on the migration decisions of left-behind household members, are used. The results indicate that the number of male and female initial migrants in the household, duration of initial migration, relationship to initial migrant, and number of migrants in the village are factors most likely to predict a subsequent move.     

THE ROLE OF FAMILY SUPPORT AND OTHER FACTORS IN RETURNING HOME

The present study focuses on the effect of social and other support from the family in the place of origin of migrants and how it impacts upon migrants’ propensity to return. The study uses longitudinal data from a project in Northeastern Thailand called the Nang Rong Project. The analysis shows that monetary support from the family left behind has a significant effect on migrants’ propensity to return home. Household strategies of migration have played an important role in explaining migration in the Nang Rong setting. At the individual and household level, education, occupation and household size were strongly associated with migrants’ propensity to return to their original village. Among the social support variables, duration of migration has significant effects on migrants’ likelihood of returning home. Three variables—marital status, wealth index and whether the person came with an immediate family member—were found to have weak associations with the dependent variable. A major finding from this study was that migrants who have higher education are more likely to stay at the destination.     

Charity and self‐help: Migrants' social networks and health care in the homeland (Respond to this article at http://www.therai.org.uk/at/debate)

This article examines the delivery of healthcare by Haalpulaar immigrants' village association in France to their rural villages in Senegal. In the context of the neo‐liberal reforms in Senegal, the Haalpulaar immigrants have been very active in funding community project in the health sector for their communities of origin left to fend for themselves by the State. Haalpulaar migrants associations like TAD (Thilogne Association Developpement) and Fuuta Santé are improving access to healthcare in the Senegal River valley through the remittances of biomedicine, medical equipment as well as the organization of annual health caravans with the participation of French health professionals and local partners.     

Migrant mothers,left-behind fathers: the negotiation of gender subjectivities in Indonesia and the Philippines

The distinct feminization of labour migration in Southeast Asia – particularly in the migration of breadwinning mothers as domestic and care workers in gender-segmented global labour markets – has altered care arrangements, gender roles and practices, as well as family relationships within the household significantly. Such changes were experienced by both the migrating women and other left-behind members of the family, particularly ‘substitute’ carers such as left-behind husbands. During the women’s absence from the home, householding strategies have to be reformulated when migrant women-as-mothers rewrite their roles (but often not their identities) through labour migration as productive workers who contribute to the well-being of their children via financial remittances and ‘long-distance mothering’, while left-behind fathers and/or other family members step up to assume some of the tasks vacated by the mother. Using both quantitative and qualitative interview material with returned migrants and left-behind household members in source communities in Indonesia and the Philippines experiencing considerable pressures from labour migration, this article explores how carework is redistributed in the migrant mother’s absence, and the ensuing implications on the gender roles of remaining family members, specifically left-behind fathers. It further examines how affected members of the household negotiate and respond to any changing gender ideologies brought about by the mother’s migration over time.     

Market mechanisms and migrant settlement intentions in urban China

This study examines the settlement intentions of migrants based on original survey data collected from four large Chinese cities. Despite the long-lasting institutional effects of the hukou (household registration) system, market mechanisms are becoming increasingly important in affecting migrant settlement intentions. Although rural hukou holders are more likely to return to their places of origin, migrants who have received higher education, who are self-employed or who own homes are more willing to permanently settle in cities. The influences of market mechanisms are also reflected in recent policy reforms related to education, housing and the hukou system.     

Environmental Risk and Uncertainty: Insights from Yucca Mountain

Abstract This study examines the effects of the risk from transporting high–level radioactive waste to the proposed Yucca Mountain repository on housing location decisions in Southern Nevada. Using data from a survey of southern Nevada households, we develop a model–based subjective risk estimate for each household. We then explore different factors that may influence the household's location decisions if the proposed transportation route is ultimately chosen for nuclear waste transport. We extend the conventional expected utility model to allow for uncertainty surrounding the actual risks borne by the household. Finally, we examine the impact of federal government compensation on households' location decisions. The findings indicate that residents currently living near the proposed transportation route express subjective risk estimates much larger than those reported by the Department of Energy. In general, households that are uncertain about the future risks are more likely to relocate than those expressing certainty. When everything is considered, the model predicts that between one and three percent of households living near the transportation route are likely to relocate. Compensation can influence some households to remain at their present location and bear the transport risk.