Premium
Remittances and the Changing Composition of Migration
Author(s) -
Le Goff Maëlan,
Salomone Sara
Publication year - 2016
Publication title -
the world economy
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.594
H-Index - 68
eISSN - 1467-9701
pISSN - 0378-5920
DOI - 10.1111/twec.12266
Subject(s) - economics , demographic economics , financial crisis , gravity model of trade , development economics , international economics , macroeconomics
Remittances are seen as a sustainable source of funding for developing countries. During recent decades, the level of remittances has increased dramatically, and the recent financial crisis has scarcely affected the trend. In the same period, the structure of international migration flows has changed. These flows are now characterised by a growing feminisation and by increasing skill levels. In this paper, we establish a link between these two facts and assess the effect of the change in the structure of migration on the level of remittances. We use a recent data set on bilateral remittances and estimate a gravity model in which the gender and education background of migration flows are accounted for. We find that remittances are positively associated with the share of female and college‐educated migrants. In particular, we argue that the rising share of college‐educated women has had a significant impact on the increase in remittances.