A short Essay on the relevance of economic and social remittances

Remittances represent one of the ways in which the bond between the migrants and the families is maintained and strengthened. They have not only an economic, but also a socio-cultural impact on the life of those remaining in the place of origin. The existence of such a connection between remittances is widely accepted among academics, development practitioners, and policy makers. Divergent assessments exist instead on the nature and consequences of such correlations, ranging from the optimists such as Chimhowu, Piesse and Pinder (2005), to the pessimists, de Haas (2005), Gubert (2005), Ghosh, (2006), just to mention the prominent ones. The fact that, as noted by Markley (2011) in his analysis of Goldring’s work (2003), remittances do not include just a monetary, and consequently economic component, but should be “disaggregated into economic and beyond economic remittances” (p. 336), is probably one of the reasons why there is such a diversity of opinions on the impact of remittance on development. The approach followed in this section is to look at remittances from their economic/monetary and non-economic component. The latter being described with the definition given by Levitt (1996), who conceived the expression social remittances to draw attention to the fact that the migrants, besides ‘physical things’, be it money or any other type of goods, take back to their home place ideas and behaviours. This wider interpretation of remittances can help to better understand the overall contribution that remittances have on the advancement of the migrants’ families (Goldring, 2004).