Remittance Motivations and Practices:

1. A Study of Guyanese, Haitians and Jamaicans in Canada Alan Simmons & Dwaine Plaza Paper presented to the workshop on Lives and Livelihoods: Economic and Demographic Change in Modern Latin America University of Guelph, May 26-27, 2006 Remittance Motivations and Practices:

2. Preliminary findings! Do not cite, quote or reproduce without permission from the authors!

3. Map of the Presentation: 1. Goals of the Research 2. Background: immigration and settlement 3. Model of Household Remittance Flows 4. Data and Findings 5. Conclusions

4. 1. Goals of the Research: • How much is remitted? In what form? • To whom? For what goals? • Through what channels? With what transfer costs? • Motives & characteristics of the senders?

5. 2. Background • Immigration levels over time • Settlement patterns in Canada • Macro estimates of national remittance receipts over time (inflows from all sources)

7. Guyanese in Toronto

8. Haitians in Montreal

9. Jamaicans in Toronto

10. El Salvador Guatemala Jamaica Haiti Honduras Guyana

11. 3. Transnational Remittance Model Resources & Motivations Outcomes for Senders Channels and Barriers Amounts Remitted Outcomes for Recipients

12. 4. Data & Findings • Survey design • Characteristics of survey respondents • Estimates of remittances sent (by households and individuals, 2005) • Channels and transfer cost • How remittances are used • Correlates of sending behavior

13. Survey Design • Criterion sample of individuals: • Born in Haiti (Montreal) Guyanese (Toronto) and Jamaica (Toronto) • Eighteen years of age or over • Living in Canada for at least one year • Knowledgeable of household expenditures • Both males and females, at all income and schooling levels • In different parts of each city

14. Questionnaire • Individual level • Household level • Monetary remittances • Goods (via “barrel”, etc.) • Collective-institutional transfers • Measures of transnational links

15. Respondents’ Characteristics

16. Amounts Sent

17. Destination of Funds Remitted

18. Intended Purposes of Funds Sent

19. Number of People Benefiting

20. Main Recipients (percents)

21. Money Transfer Channels

22. Transfer Costs

23. Barrels Sent to Home Country

24. Content of Barrel Sent Home

25. Who sends remittances?

26. Total Household Remittances in 2004 by Household Income Category

27. Transnational Family Contacts

28. Mean Remittances Sent Controlling for Telephone Contact

29. Involvement in Transnational “Projects”

30. Feelings about demands placed by Transnational family

31. Policy Oriented Conclusions • Reduce transfer fees & expand financial services • Tax exemption for remitters • State provision of matching funds to remittance receivers • Strengthen TN community links

32. Future Research Questions Are remittance flows shaped by: • Remittance fatigue? • Second generation? • Shifting centre of the transnational community? • Transnational identity? • Return migration plans? • Etc.

33. END

34. Acknowledgements • Canadian International Development Agency (CIDA), for project financing • Centre for Research on Latin America and the Caribbean, York University, for institutional support. • Centre D’Études Ethniques des Universités Montréalaises (CEETUM) and the Département de démographie, Université de Montréal, for support and collaboration.

35. For further details: • Alan Simmons, CERLAC, York University asimmons@yorku.ca • Dwaine Plaza, Oregon State U., Corvallis. dplaza@oregonstate.edu