Remittances and Social Policy: Reflecting on The Migration Conference 2019

Abstract

The debates over and interest in remittances have grown significantly in the last decade or so. This is mainly due to the growth in the volume of remittances sent and received around the world which exceeded 600 billion USD per annum. Despite a burgeoning literature, most studies focus on the receiving end. However, it takes two to tango. The circumstances of those sending and the impact of sending remittances on the sending parties are equally important. The determinants of each and every transfer, the motivations to send money and its impact on further migrations, integration and beyond needs to be understood. More studies needed to understand sending behaviour and dynamics. Patterns of remittance sending should be examined from both sending and receiving perspectives. Another weak area in the literature is the remittance flows into industrialised countries (or traditional destination countries). These flows represent about a third of global remittance flows and yet to receive adequate attention in scholarly and policy debates. Within the wider framework of remittances debate, it is also important to bring in social policy perspectives. These questions are being reflected in this article concern the papers presented at The Migration Conference 2019 Bari, Italy.