Migrants' Remittances and the Household in Africa: A Review of Evidence

By J. Azam, F. Gubert. 2006

332 citations recorded by the source corpus.

This paper reviews some of the microeconomic evidence concerning migration and remittances in Africa. After a brief survey of the literature, it draws some lessons from two surveys performed in the Senegal River valley in Mali and in Senegal. The paper makes two main points. First, migration cannot be understood as an individual decision, but must instead be regarded as a collective decision made by the extended family or the village. It involves the strategic choice of sending its best offspring away with a view to diversify its risks and to build a social network. Then, remittances are to a large extent a contingent flow, aimed at buttressing the family's consumption in case of adverse shock. Secondly, however, this insurance system involves some moral hazard, as those remaining behind tend to exert less effort to take care of themselves, knowing that the migrants will compensate any consumption shortfall, with a high probability. These results undermine a very popular view about migration on the basis of relative deprivation and solve a puzzle that bugged this literature for nearly three decades: the rich families are more likely to send some migrants away and thus get more remittances, while they earn less income in the village because of moral hazard. Wealth makes them lazy, while low (earned) income does not make them poor!

Subfields: Safety Research, Sociology and Political Science

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/a80ecca5b8071f82b37c60795b77d228bb0873ba

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Citations in the corpus

Rural–Urban Migration, Household Vulnerability, and Welfare in Vietnam (2015, background): “Similarly, Azam and Gubert (2006) report findings from Mali and Senegal according to which remittances cause rural households to reduce their work effort, which reduces the effectiveness of migration as a poverty reduction instrument.”
Impact of Migration on Economic and Social Development: A Review of Evidence and Emerging Issues (2011, neutral): “Migration is a decision that impacts the welfare of the household, the home community, and in the end the whole economy in various ways (Azam and Gubert 2006).”
Migratory Responses to Agricultural Risk in Northern Nigeria (2011, neutral): “A rich literature focuses on the use of migration to overcome the perils caused by risk, capital market imperfections, and liquidity constraints (Rosenzweig and Stark 1989; Stark 1991; Azam and Gubert 2006; Giles 2006; Halliday 2006).”
Effect of Remittances on Poverty and Financial Development in Sub-Saharan Africa (2009, background): “Azam and Gubert (2006) utilize household survey data from the Senegal River Valley in Mali, and Senegal, and draw conclusions about the insurance, and moral hazard aspects of migration, and remittances.”
Internal Labor Migration as a Shock Coping Strategy: Evidence from a Typhoon (2016, background): “See Cavallo and Noy (2010) and Dell et al.”