From individual motivations to social determinants: towards a sociology of migrants’ remittances

What is it about?

This paper outlines a sociological approach to understanding​ migrants' remittances

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Why is it important?

Studies adopting the perspective of the new economics of labor migration (NEML) identify migrants’ altruism or self-interest as the motivation for their remittances. This paper first recognizes its limits due to its utilitarian conception of migrants’ altruism and inability to distinguish between altruism and self-interest. In a review of the existing literature, this paper identifies alternative conceptualizations​ of migrants’ agency and structures embedding their remittances as well as emergent properties of both their agency and those structures. Lastly, it outlines a heuristic typology to empirically study migrants’ remittances following Durkheim's approach to suicide, demonstrating the usefulness of this typology by citing examples from the literature as well as reflecting the author's dissertation research.