The World Region

Niagara Falls. 

"The Canadian side is better, more developed. They have better hotels."

"Sorry, but we need a visa to enter Canada."

"I forgot. The kids are okay, they are Americans. You and I need visas"

Migration is a strategy followed by women when they face poverty or when they widowed or divorced. In India, women mainly migrate because they get married. In other countries women migrate to get better job opportunities, for education purposes or for family reunification. For example in Lesotho, since divorced women or widowers do not count with the income of a male migrant wage-earner, they are the ones who have to support their families.

Case study evidence of migrants’ labor market performance in receiving countries shows that most immigrants from developing countries, regardless of their destination, suffer an earnings penalty and higher inactivity levels and unemployment rates than nationals. In Europe, unemployment rates for immigrants originating from developing countries are uniformly higher than those from more developed economies. This gap is more pronounced for women than men across all skill levels (Page and Plaza, 2006). The situation is not different for immigrants in South Africa. The majority of female workers from Lesotho work in low-paying jobs since they have an irregular migration status. However, they get more money compared to what they get in Lesotho for the same work  that they do in South Africa. The majority of women from Lesotho work as domestic workers, followed by agricultural jobs and in the informal sector (Crush, Dodson, Gay and Leduka, 2010).

Book working title: “Global Migration and Remittances during the Financial Crisis and Beyond”

To be published by the World Bank in Spring 2011

Edited by Ibrahim Sirkeci, Jeffrey H. Cohen, and Dilip Ratha

 (Available in French and Spanish)

We have just released our latest outlook for remittance flows. Officially recorded remittance flows to developing countries are estimated to increase by 6 percent to $325 billion in 2010. This marks a healthy recovery from a 5.5 percent decline registered in 2009. In line with the World Bank’s outlook for the global economy, remittance flows to developing countries are expected to increase by 6.2 percent in 2011 and 8.1 percent in 2012, to reach $374 billion by 2012. (Note that the World Bank’s definition of developing countries has changed: Poland, which is estimated to have received $9.1 billion in 2010, is no longer a classified as a developing country.)

This outlook for remittance flows, however, is subject to three key risks:

• First, the economic recovery in the major destination countries in North America and Europe is not very firm yet. There is a risk that the fiscal retrenchment being planned or implemented in some of the major destination countries might restrain aggregate demand and economic growth, and contribute to high unemployment rates, which in turn could reduce the migrants’ incomes and remittances.
   
• Second, movements in currency exchange rates and commodity prices can pose unpredictable risks for remittance flows. While a weaker US dollar can imply larger dollar-denominated remittances from Europe, it can also increase dollar prices of assets and goods in remittance-receiving countries (such as India, Mexico and the Philippines).
   
•  Finally, there is a risk that immigration controls imposed in response to high domestic unemployment rates will deepen and adversely affect migration and remittance flows. In general, protectionist policies that slow the movement of goods and people across borders are likely to delay an adjustment to the crisis and prolong the process of recovery. Such policies are also inconsistent with the sharp increase in demand for migrants projected in the rapidly aging societies of the North.