Sonia Plaza

This Migration and Development Brief provides an update on worldwide remittance flows and the global migration crisis. It focuses on two Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) indicators: reducing remittance costs, and reducing recruitment costs for low-skilled migrants. In September 2016, the United Nations General Assembly Summit on “Large Movements of Refugees and Migrants” committed to develop two global compacts: a Global Compact on Refugees, and a Global Compact for Safe, Orderly, and Regular Migration. Negotiations on both compacts are expected to continue through 2017, with final adoption expected at a United Nations international conference in 2018. The Brief reports on progress in the preparation of the global compacts, with an expanded discussion of the Global Compact on Migration.

Important documentation related to the Migration and Remittances Household Surveys— including the project report, methodological specifications, and anonymized microdata—have recently been made available to the research community and to policy makers (see the World Bank website). The purpose of this paper is to describe the surveys ’ data sources, content, methodological underpinnings, and the way the fieldwork and data cleaning were carried out. Some preliminary results will be presented so as to underscore the potential these surveys afford

This volume is a product of the staff of the International Bank for Reconstruction and Development / The World Bank. The findings, interpretations, and conclusions expressed in this volume do not necessarily reflect the views of the Executive Directors of The World Bank or the governments they represent. The World Bank does not guarantee the accuracy of the data included in this work. The boundaries, colors, denominations, and other information shown on any map in this work do not imply any judgment on the part of The World Bank concerning the legal status of any territory or the endorsement or acceptance of such boundaries. Rights and Permissions The material in this publication is copyrighted. Copying and/or transmitting portions or all of this work without permission may be a violation of applicable law. The International Bank for Reconstruction and Development / The World Bank encourages dissemination of its work

A considerable amount of research has been conducted on the topic of migration and remittances over the last few years. Early studies on immi-gration policy assumed that migrants leave their countries, settle in a new country, start integrating in their new society, and abandon their ties with their country of origin. Today, however, globalization makes it possible for immigrants to remain connected with their native countries while residing abroad. To address the latest developments on migration and remittances, the authors provide a global survey of the analytical and empirical litera-ture on these issues. This paper reviews evidence on how migrants contrib-ute to the economic development of their countries of origin. In addition to describing the state of knowledge regarding flows of people and migrant remittances worldwide, it focuses on the current literature dealing with the development impact of transfers of money, knowledge, and skills by migrants back to their home countrie...

The number of migrants has risen rapidly in the past few years for various reasons: job opportunities, labor shortages resulting from falling birth rates, internal conflict and war, natural disasters, climate change, and improved access to information through phone and the Internet. The migration and remittances fact book 2016 provides a comprehensive picture of emigration, immigration, and remittance flows for 214 countries and territories and 15 country groups, drawing on authoritative, publicly available data. The current edition of the fact book updates the information in the 2011 edition with data collected from various sources, including national censuses, labor force surveys, and population registers. In addition, for each country and regional grouping from the World Bank’s world development indicators, it provides selected socioeconomic characteristics such as population, labor force, age-dependency ratio, gross national income per capita, and poverty headcount.

This report adds value because its inclusive approach of engaging with a broad-based group of stakeholders at the time of both analysis and engagement has served a means of building support for needed reforms. The goal was to generate ownership among Mindanawons through consultations which were guided by mostly local technical experts. For the analysis, the World Bank partnered with leading universities, think tanks, experts, and nongovernmental organizations (NGOs). Some 90 percent of the extended team came from within Mindanao, and they contributed more than 40 background papers. The study’s inclusive approach was to listen intently to government, business, labor, civil society, and vulnerable groups who are often left out in the engagement process, such as indigenous people, Moro women, out-of-school youth, combatants, and internally displaced people. From January 2015 to June 2016, some 1,500 stakeholders were consulted. Finally, 10 eminent individuals with government, business,...

This paper analyzes how immigrants differ from natives regarding their home property ownership and access to basic services. The paper also examines the factors that affect property ownership in terms of their demographic characteristics and consumption levels. Accurate data on immigrants in South Africa is not easily available. We use recently collected household survey data on migration and remittances. The survey was implemented in South Africa in 2009 and surveyed 2,026 households and a total of 7,671 household members. The data were collected in two provinces in South Africa Gauteng and Limpopo that have the largest population of immigrants from the main corridors. The migration and remittances household survey in South Africa, allows us to construct a profile of immigrants in these two provinces. This paper explores the possibility that family and individual characteristics may affect home ownership of immigrants. We thus first apply a regression framework to estimate how far ...

This paper examines patterns of remittances among migrants from Guizhou province of China. Our research is motivated by three lines of theoretical arguments, namely the new economics of migration, a translocal perspective linking remittances and development, and the culture of remittances. Taking individual, household, and village-level characteristics into account, we estimated multilevel logistic models of the decision to remit and multilevel models of the amount of remittances. Our results show that migrant remittance behaviour is responsive to family needs as well as household economic position in the village. Migrants who come from entrepreneurial households are more likely to remit a large amount than other types of households. We find some evidence of ‘culture of remittances’ in these villages. Consistent with our expectations, migrants who are from villages with higher amounts of average remittances are likely to remit a larger amount than otherwise.

... Las remesas tienden a ser relativamente estables, y pueden tener un comportamiento anticíclico, porque familiares y amigos suelen enviar más remesas cuando el país receptor experi-menta una desaceleración económica o un desastre (Mohapatra, Joseph y Ratha, 2009). ...

Important documentation related to the Migration and Remittances Household Surveys— including the project report, methodological specifications, and anonymized microdata—have recently been made available to the research community and to policy makers (see the World Bank website). The purpose of this paper is to describe the surveys' data sources, content, methodological underpinnings, and the way the fieldwork and data cleaning were carried out. Some preliminary results will be presented so as to underscore the potential these surveys afford to researchers everywhere.

________________ 1 George Joseph; his e-mail address is [email protected]. Sonia Plaza; her e-mail address is [email protected]. The views and interpretations are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect those of the World Bank, its Executive Directors or the countries they represent.