Workshop: Migration, Remittances and Development: The Impact of Gender, Race and Class

August 1, 2009

Migration, Remittances and Development: The Impact of Gender, Race and Class

Workshop Sponsored by IDN

The workshop transpired over four days in July, 2009.  During the first day and through lunch of the second day, all of the participants brainstormed key issues and questions involving remittances among Dominican and Guatemalan immigrants in Atlanta.  The brainstorming sessions enabled them to expand the interdisciplinary dimensions of the project and included the needs of the multiple stakeholders.  From the afternoon of the second day through the fourth day, the principal investigators and research partners worked on drafting a research proposal.

From the Workshop Proposal

The wages of immigrants in affluent nations such as the U.S. have become so vital in sustaining families in developing countries that scholars and policymakers are targeting "remittances" as a key development strategy.[i]  However, feminist scholars challenge the predominant "remittances and development" discussions for omitting gender; without a "gender perspective," policies can reproduce gender inequalities that disadvantage women.[ii]  At the forefront of the feminist challenge, the UN organization, International Research and Training Institute for the Advancement of Women (UN-INSTRAW) has developed research methods and conceptual tools to place gender on the "remittances and development" policy agenda.[iii]

Our study advances UN-INSTRAW's gender perspective in a new direction.  Looking at gender within a multidimensional framework, we focus on how inequalities by gender, race/ethnicity and class influence remittance flows and their consequences.  We build upon the work of Levitt, who argues that given particular social conditions of inequality, the influx of money from remittances can produce negative effects that fall hardest on the most disadvantaged individuals and families in sending countries.[iv]  Levitt identifies gender and class hierarchies as two of the most important of these social conditions.  Our research will investigate how race/ethnicity represents a third pivotal social condition.

Race/ethnic hierarchies combine with gender and class to shape economic opportunities and barriers in the U.S., determining where an immigrant can live and work, and the amount of wages a migrant can earn to send home.[v]  Yet, the impact of gender, race and class extends beyond the economic realm, driving household decisions about who migrates, whether the money is sent at all, who controls the remittances and how the funds are used in the receiving country.[vi]  These processes are complex; the larger economic environments and political relations in the sending and receiving countries translate into distinct remittance outcomes depending on how gender, race and class are articulated as intersecting social systems for a specific group.[vii]

[i] Acosta, Fajnzaylber and López (2006); Maimbo and Ratha (2005); World Bank (2005, 2006)

[ii] Kunz (2008); Orozco Paiewonsky and Domínguez (2008); Orozco and Paiewonsky (2007); Orozco and Orozco (2008).  UN-INSTRAW (2006; 2008)

[iii] See the UN-INSTRAW website, www.UN-INSTRAW.org for a comprehensive description of their activities and a list of their publication.

[iv] Levitt (2001).

[v] Browne (1999); Marrow (2005); Menjívar (2006).

[vi]Levitt (2001); Orozco Paiewonsky and Domínguez (2008); Orozco and Orozco (2008).  UN-INSTRAW (2006; 2008)

[vii] Browne and Misra (2003); White (2006)