Remittances and the financial capabilities of migrant households in the Philippines

This exploratory mixed methods study sought to determine the financial capabilities of remittance-receiving households from two rural municipalities in the Philippines: San Nicolas in Ilocos Norte province and Moncada in Tarlac province. The broader concept of financial capabilities not only looks at people’s financial literacy but also their financial inclusion (access to financial products) and financial functionings (actions on finance). Quantitative household surveys and qualitative data gathering methods that fall under a rapid qualitative inquiry (RQI) design were employed. Results and findings show that more remittance households from San Nicolas saved, invested, and did business in their hometown compared to counterpart migrant household respondents from Moncada. Differences in migrant households’ levels of financial literacy, as well as the geographic make-up and economic activities of the two municipalities, may help explain why one municipality had more migrant investors, savers, and entrepreneurs over the other.

EXPRESS: The Economic and Social Impacts of Migration on Brand Expenditure: Evidence from Rural India

Households sending members to work away from home often receive information about lifestyles and consumption behaviors in those migration destinations (i.e., social remittances) along with economic remittances. We investigate the effect of having a migrant household member on household brand expenditures in rural India—a market characterized by substantial consumption of unbranded products. We collect and analyze household-level survey data from 434 households across 30 villages using an instrumental variable strategy. Economic remittances result in greater brand expenditure and this level is higher for poorer households. After controlling for economic remittances, the effect of migration on brand expenditures is more positive for households residing in more populous villages, with greater access to mobile phones, lower viewership of television media, and with less recently departed migrants. We demonstrate how marketing resource allocation across villages can be improved by incorporating migration data and provide insights for household targeting in the context of door-to-door selling in villages. Our results are robust to alternate, public policy-based instruments, and can be generalized to expenditure on private schools. Using additional survey data from 300 households in 62 new villages, we replicate our results by comparing within-households brand expenditures before and after the migration event.

Heterogeneity of Internal Migrant Household Consumption in Host Cities: A Comparison of Skilled Migrants and Labor Migrants in China

Improvements in migrant families’ consumption are crucial to economic development after the economic crisis. With China’s participation in economic globalization, industrial transformation and college enrolment expansion, a new type of migrant worker has emerged, skilled migrants, who have attained a college diploma or above and whose consumption behaviors differ from traditional labor migrants because education helps to improve the income and consumption structure. This study uses comparative analysis and Tobit model to examine differences in income and consumption patterns, and determinants of consumption between skilled migrant and labor migrant households. Education helps to increase income and alter consumption behaviors. The income and consumption levels of skilled migrant households are significantly higher than the levels of labor migrant households, and the propensity to consume among skilled migrant households is higher than among labor migrant households. Moreover, the consumption structure of skilled migrant households is more advanced than that of labor migrant households. Education indirectly influences consumption by influencing economic, familial, individual, settlement intention, and social security factors. These factors have different effects on skilled migrant and labor migrant household consumption. Authorities should improve the education level and social welfare system to cover migrant households, especially for low-income labor migrants, to improve their consumption.

Migrating into Poverty and Malady: Psychosocial Challenges Rural Pakistani Women in a Post Migration Scenario

This research explores the psychosocial challenges faced by rural Pakistani women in the wake of their migration to the city. A focus group and ten in-depth interviews were conducted with women from a migrant household. The study revealed that migrant women's frustration of unmet needs, the stress of unfulfilled expectations along with pressing socio-economic circumstances paves the way for a range of psychological problems like hopelessness, demoralization, lack of motivation, shame, social withdrawal and isolation, psychosomatic complaints anxiety and depression. The findings revealed that Persistent poverty does not only affect the psychological well-being of these migrant women but also keeps them trapped in impoverishment. It also highlighted that the psychosocial challenges for these migrant women increase twofold in the urban settings as they are compelled to exist on the margin of the margins as the poorest of the poor.

Assessing the Assets and Welfare Conditions of the Left-Behind Migrant Households in the Ekumfi District of Ghana

the study assessed the assets and welfare conditions of the left-behind migrant households in the Ekumfi District of Ghana during the absence of remittance receipts. The Asset-Based Welfare Paradigm informed the study. Using the multi-stage sampling procedure, 377 left-behind migrant household heads were sampled and administered with survey questionnaires. Descriptive statistical methods and Principal Component Analysis (PCA) were used for data analyses. This was supplemented with in-depth interviews from eight key informants. The results showed that apart from food, economic and financial indices, the other existing stocks of assets did not enhance the welfare conditions of the left-behind migrant households. The study concluded that generally left-behind migrant households had depriving assets and welfare conditions during the absence of remittance receipts. Additionally, government’s social intervention and development programmes enhanced the assets and welfare conditions of the left-behind migrant households. The study therefore recommended that the Government of Ghana should extend the provision of social support services beyond free healthcare and education and include basic asset indices such as housing, water, sanitation, economic, financial, food, gender equity and access to social organisation to cushion the welfare conditions of the left-behind migrant households during the absence of remittance receipts.

Split Households, Family Migration and Urban Settlement: Findings from China’s 2015 National Floating Population Survey

For decades, China’s rural migrants have split their households between their rural origins and urban work locations. While the hukou system continues to be a barrier to urban settlement, research has also underscored split households as a migrant strategy that spans the rural and urban boundary, questioning if sustained migration will eventually result in permanent urban settlement. Common split-household arrangements include sole migration, where the spouse and children are left behind, and couple migration, where both spouses are migrants, leaving behind their children. More recently, nuclear family migration involving both the spouse and children has been on the rise. Based on a 2015 nationally representative “floating population” survey, this article compares sole migrants, couple migrants, and family migrants in order to examine which migrants choose which household arrangements, including whether specific household arrangements are more associated with settlement intention than others. Our analysis also reveals differences between work-related migrants and family-related migrants. The findings highlight demographic, gender, economic, employment, and destination differences among the different types of migrant household arrangements, pointing to family migration as a likely indicator of permanent settlement. The increase of family migration over time signals to urban governments an increased urgency to address their needs as not only temporary dwellers but more permanent residents.

Hukou Status and Individual-Level Labor Market Discrimination: An Experiment in China

This article examines discrimination based on hukou status, a legal construct that segregates locals and migrants in urban China. Local and migrant household helpers were recruited as experimental participants to interact in a standard gift exchange game (GEG) as well as a new variant of the GEG, called the wage promising game (WPG). The WPG uses non-binding wage offers and final wages that employers set after observing effort. In the GEG, both statistical and preference-based discrimination may motivate employers to offer lower wages to migrants than to locals, whereas in the WPG the statistical motive is excluded. Results reveal discrimination against migrants and show that preference-based discrimination is an important employer motive.