Exceptional People: How Migration Shaped Our World and Will Define Our Future by Ian Goldin Geoffrey Cameron & Meera Balarajan

Author:Ian Goldin, Geoffrey Cameron & Meera Balarajan
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Princeton University Press

Figure 6.2. International remittances: top ten countries in terms of total receipts (US$ billions) and as percentage of GDP, 2008. Dilip Ratha, Sanket Mohapatra, and Zhimei Xu. 2008. “Outlook for Remittance Flows 2008-2010: Growth Expected to Moderate Significantly, but Flows to Remain Resilient,” Migration and Development Brief No. 8. Washington, DC: World Bank, box figure 1.

Country studies also show that remittances improve the health and education of children, and they have a positive influence on infant health and in reducing child mortality.134 School dropout rates are lower among households receiving remittances in Sri Lanka and El Salvador, and in Sri Lanka, children in remittance-receiving households have higher birth weights (indicating access to better health care).135 Children from Mexican families in which one or several members had migrated completed between 0.7 and 1.6 more years of schooling than children who did not have family members who had migrated.136 Remittances have also raised the levels of children's education in Jordan, Thailand, and the Philippines. While these higher levels of education could be due to the selectivity of migration (families with a member overseas may be likely to spend more on education, regardless of remittances), a study of the Philippines during and after the 1997-1998 financial crisis saw unanticipated increases in remittances spent on enhancing children's schooling. These results show a direct link between remittances and education spending.137

As private transfers, remittances can also stimulate local development. In Pakistan and Thailand, families receiving remittances use them to hire farm labor and purchase equipment, which in the long run leads to farm modernization and output growth. In China and South Africa, farming households that received remittances increased crop production over time because of the availability of extra capital for investment.138 Remittances can also promote access to self-employment and provide financing for small business.139 In Mexico, a fifth of the capital invested in small-scale enterprises comes from remittances.140 Remittance receipts of $2 billion are estimated to have created additional economic worth of $5.8 billion.141

Remittances may also take the form of collective transfers. In 2005, “collective” contributions of about $20 million were sent through Mexican Home Town Associations (HTAs), committees established by migrants to support development at home.142 Migrant associations established by New York's Jewish communities during World War I helped to finance reconstruction in Europe. Today, migrant associations are directly involved in socio-economic development in home communities all over the world. They helped to organize disaster relief after Hurricane Mitch in Central America in 1998, and after earthquakes in Turkey (1999) and Gujarat, India (2001).143 Others have helped to build and fund clinics, schools, universities, and infrastructure development in their communities of origin.

HTAs have become especially prominent and influential in Mexico. Portes notes that these HTAs “have acquired such power and visibility as to become interlocutors of the Mexican state and federal authorities and to acquire a frequently decisive significance in the development prospects of their hometowns.”144 One example of their influence is the creation of the Mexican Government's Tres por Uno (three for one) program in response to HTA activity.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.