In any act of household migration, there are movers (the migrant) and stayers (those leftudbehind), and both of these two groups have expectations. The movers expect to make someudbenefits at the destination while the stayers expect the migrant to send or do something atudhome of origin. Some work, though limited, has been done to improve our understanding ofudhow potential migrants form their expectations of what they can get from the destinationudcountry in studies involving determinants of individual migration. But for those left behindudvery little is known about how they form their expectations of what they can get from theudmigrant. The few studies that have been done on this have only used observed flow ofudremittances to estimate what people left behind expect from migration. Hence these studiesudequate observed flow of remittances to expected flows. And by this equation, these studiesudalso assume perfect information flow between migrants and relations left behind as well asudperfect knowledge to help those left behind to form realistic expectations: expectations thatudreflects exactly what can be sent to them. Obviously these assumptions are not tenable.udThese untenable assumptions also leave a hole in our ability to explain why a household willudchoose to either continue supporting members for migration or not. This is because we cannotudtell from observed data alone whether or not the desire to continue to support migration of audhousehold or a family member is as a result of well-informed subjective expectations or not.udThe crust of the problem here is therefore that by relying on observed data alone we fail toudaccount for the important role subjective expectations or beliefs of those left behind play inuddecisions for further migration movements, especially within the family.udTo be able to unravel this problem we need elicitation of subjective expectations ofudremittance flows from those left behind. Using data from a specially designed survey in twouddistricts in Ghana, I construct time-adjusted subjective remittance expectations of migrantudfamilies at home of origin and analyse the factors that determine the formation of theseudexpectations and how formation of these expectations can help us explain perpetuation ofudmigration within a household. The key analytical models employed in these investigations areudsummarised belowudIn order to understand the exogenous determinants of remittance expectations of migrantudhouseholds, I first of all estimate factors that influence performance of migrant at home ofudorigin and general flow of information between the migrants and the household members leftudbehind. In order to see the effect of remittances on formation of subjective expectations,udremittance flow was measured in terms of migrant performance by adjusting the flows to theudtime period during which the migrant could do what he or she has done. The items wereudlimited to the popular ones people receive: money for living expenses, establishment of audhouse and business investment. The theoretical explanation for this adjustment is that if theudobserved trend in remittance flow has any effect on expectations it would be throughudindividual household’s evaluation of what migrants have achieved within a certain number ofudyears. In other words, all things being equal, families whose migrants took much longerudperiod to achieve certain things would have lower levels of expectations than a comparableudfamily whose migrant took relatively shorter period. This is because taking a long time toudachieve something at home of origin would breed some kind of skepticism and uncertaintyudamong those left behind as to what they can get from migration. And this skepticism can leadudto low levels of expectations. This is also in line with the reference people left behind oftenudmake when talking about achievements of migrants at home of origin as they always point toudwhat XYZ has done. Ordinary least squared regression is then used to estimate factorsuddetermining level of migrant performance at home of origin after the transformation of theuddependent variable: migrant performance. Heckman selection model is also applied to controludfor possible effect of bias since some households have migrants who have done nothing atudhome. Kinship ties are the major factors under this investigation.udTo determine the main factors influencing information flow, ordinary least squared estimatesudare used while a generalised ordered logit model, with maximum likelihood method, is usedudto estimate the factors influencing the likelihood of a household getting higher categories ofudprivate/dedicated information from the migrant. Major factors for this investigation areudkinship ties and performance of migrant at home of origin. Since information flow andudremittance flows are suspected to have endogenous relationship, instrumental variables (IV)udtechnique is employed to estimated impact of remittance flow on both private and publicudinformation flows. This is important for us to understand how information flow act asudexogenous determinant of subjective remittance expectations, and resultant effect onudperpetuation of migration.udOnce current information flow and performance of migrants have been examined and effectsudof their exogenous factors estimated, the next stage of the analysis is the examination ofudeffects of these past performance and information flow on household subjective remittanceudexpectations while controlling for other major exogenous factors such as kinship ties, level ofudeducation and household wealth. Ordinary least square regression technique is used toudestimate major determinants of these levels of expectations. However, to control for possibleudbias resulting from the fact that a select group of households may not expect anything,udHeckman selection model is applied.udThe final analysis is the estimation of impact household subjective remittance expectations onudmigration-support intentions. Due to the problem of endogenous relationship betweenudexpectations and migration decisions, ordinary maximum likelihood estimates would not beudvery effective in identifying the real impact expectations have on migration decisions. HenceudI use maximum likelihood with endogenous repressors to estimate or identify the influence ofudexpectation on potential migration decisions, applying the probit model with selection modelud(heckprob) technique. Ordered probit analysis is also used to investigate what determinesudhousehold’s desire to support more than one person for migration. The results areudsummarised below.udSummary of FindingsudEconomics and sociology literature makes us aware that in order to understand formation ofudexpectations of any kind we first have to investigate two important factors: past events andudcurrent information flow, because these are the two factors that hugely influenceudexpectations. Hence, for us to understand remittance expectations, we first have to understandudtwo issues: observed past flows of remittances and current flow of information between theudmigrant and relations left behind at home of origin.udIf remittance flows should influence household or family’s (including the extended familyudmembers) subjective expectations and the support to move abroad, it should largely do so inudterms of what has been observed in the past. In Chapter Six, I investigated the influence ofudkinship ties on receipts of remittances. As expected, closer migrant relations such as spouseudand head of family stand a much better chance of having better performance from migrantudthan distant kinship ties such as friendship. However when it comes to performance inudindividual items such as house or business investment, a household cannot rely only onudkinship ties with migrant. It should also have some wealth. Specifically, among the kinshipudties only spousal relationship was found to have positive effect on migrant performance inudareas such as housing and business investment. Thus the influence of kinship ties on observedudflow of remittances is mostly limited to money for living expenses, unless the family leftudbehind is wealthy enough to enable allocation of what is sent into other things such asudinvestment in housing and business.udWith kinship ties being very influential in the determination of past performance of migrantsudone would expect that these ties would also influence information flow if the assumption ofudremittance and information flow being together holds. It has always been assumed byudcumulative causation theories of migration that together with the flow of remittances fromudmigrant to relations back at home is the flow of information that connects migrant, potentialudmigrants and those left behind (Massey et al, 1993). If this is the case then relationshipudshould be a key factor in determining information flow from the migrants, because these tiesudinfluence flow of remittances. Results from the 2SLS model show that remittance flow hasudimpact only at the lower levels of private information flow, reinforcing the point thatudinformation that comes with remittance flow may just be social issues such as size of family,udmarital status, and not economic ones. In spite of their strong effect on remittance flow orudmigrant performance, all the types of kinship ties generally have negative effects on privateudinformation flow. Thus kinship ties are not enough for those left behind to get more privateudinformation from the migrant relations residing abroad.udIt should not be surprising that remittance flows do not lead to higher levels of informationudflow from the migrants to those left behind. This is because remittances are mostly made upudof monetary transfers for living expenses which may not carry much information with it as, inudmost cases, migrants do not require monitoring. And with electronic transfers of these days,udit becomes more implausible to assume that remittance flows, which are mostly limited toudmonetary transfers, would generate private information as the interpersonal exchanges inudthese transfers become more and more reduced. But since the lower levels of privateudinformation flows only contain pieces of information such as marital status, household sizeudand education levels, it follows that remittance flow may not be the best channel throughudwhich relations get important information about the socioeconomic conditions of the migrant.udPerhaps this assumption was more plausible about 30 years ago when migrants mostly reliedudon methods such as using other migrants going home. Families left behind have to rely onudtheir wealth or good level of education to be able to source information from the migrants.udOn the other hand, remittance flow or migrant performance has highly significant andudpositive influence on public information flow, suggesting that what migrants do at homeudinfluence some perceived knowledge of the migrants’ socioeconomic conditions. It is alsoudinteresting to note that factors such as average household education and wealth that haveudsignificant positive effect on private information flow have negative effect on publicudinformation flow. One can therefore deduce that the more families are able to accessudinformation from the migrants themselves, the less they rely on migration information fromudnonmigrant sources or the general public in the community of origin. Unfortunatelyudremittance flow is unable to help those left behind to get more information from the migrant.udHence most of them will have to rely on public information.udWith the flow of crucial information such as economic conditions of migrants lacking orudbeing inadequate, it can be concluded that there would be some level of uncertainty aboutudconditions. And this level of uncertainty may lead to some guess-work or reliance onudinformation from other sources in the formation of remittance expectations. That is, wouldudtheir inability to access crucial information on economic conditions of the migrants “push”udthem to rely on information reaching them from other sources in the formation ofudexpectations? Also if the wealthy and the more educated families are more likely to knowudmore about the migrants, and if knowing more about the migrant is most likely to temperudhigh expectations with realism as hypothesized in this study, would it be fair to conclude thatudwealthier and more educated families may have ambivalent, if not negative expectationudlevels?udResults from Chapter Seven show that families would use their experience of what migrantsudhave done at home of origin as a starting point in the formation of their remittanceudexpectations in terms of whether or not they should expect something. But once theirudexpectation status is assured, families are much more influenced by other factors than migrantudperformance in the formation of their subjective remittance expectation levels. In other wordsudat lower levels of information, remittance expectations seem to be more adaptive to pastudtrends of observed remittance flows. Kinship ties become very significant in this respect inudspite of its insignificant influence on information flow. This raises a question of whether orudnot the effect of kinship ties on formation of remittance expectations is informed byudinformation from the migrants. All the results point to the contrary. The effects of kinship tiesudon subjective remittance expectations are informed more by past experience of remittanceudreceipts than current dedicated/ private flow of information between the families and theudmigrants. When kinship ties are interacted with private information their effects onudremittance expectations are, however, significantly reduced, indicating that when people takeudprivate or dedicated information into consideration their high expectations are very muchudchecked.udWhat are the implications of subjective remittance expectations form under low levels ofuddedicated information flow for migration decisions? Chapter Eight sought to provide theudanswer to this question. The results confirmed the hypothesis that subjective remittanceudexpectations formed under inadequate flow of dedicated information would lead to increasinguddesire to support more migration from the family and the opposite should also true. That isudunder inadequate information flow, subjective remittance expectations have highly positiveudeffect on desire to perpetuate migration more than the demonstrative effect of migrantudperformance, emphasizing the importance of expectations in perpetuation of migration.udHowever, the strong effect of expectations and kinship ties on desire to support migrationudcould be reduced if high levels of dedicated information are taken into consideration. Furtherudinvestigation into why some families with remittance expectations would still not want toudsupport members to migrate revealed that, in addition to private or dedicated informationudflow, average household education level is a major factor that discourages families withudremittance expectations from further supporting members to migrate. This is in sharp contrastudwith the generally accepted view that education selects families and individuals intoudmigration, especially international migration. This is true in the general population. Whenudonly migrant families are sampled, as in this study, the effects of education on migration areudtempered with information flow. Education allows the family to access more and more ofudprivate/dedicated information which has negative effect on remittance expectations. It isudtherefore not surprising that education may discourage families with expectations to continueudsupporting migration. But since most people do not get the private information or do not evenudconsider it as, expectations which are hugely informed by past performance, publicudinformation and mere kinship ties would continue to drive perpetuation of migration, at least,udat the household level.
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