Linking Migration and Household Welfare in Cameroon: Zooming Into the Effect of Return Migration on Self-employment

Linking Migration and Household Welfare in Cameroon: Zooming Into the Effect of Return Migration on Self-employment
Author: Belmondo Tanankem Voufo
Publisher:
Total Pages:
Release: 2017
Genre:
ISBN:

International migration and its impacts on development is a crucial theme widely discussed in Cameroon. Although Cameroonians, especially the youth, have long been traveling, studying or living abroad, the idea of finding better living conditions elsewhere has gained prominence over the recent years. According to the most recent estimates from the International Organization for Migration (IOM), the number of Cameroonians living abroad was estimated at 170,363 in 2007, for a population estimated at 20 million inhabitants. Moreover, in 2016 official remittances inflows to Cameroon were estimated at US$ 250 million, up from US$ 135 million in 2010, and representing approximatively 0.9% of GDP. There are evidences around the world supporting the existence of significant links between migration and remittances and (1) employment (including self-employment), (2) households welfare, and (3) income distribution and economic development. However, despite the substantial number of Cameroonians living abroad and the large amount of remittances inflows to the country, the effects of migration and remittances on development outcomes are still not well known. The available studies have investigated the effects of migration on income poverty and on the education of left behind children, as well as the effects of remittances on households expenditures. To the best of our knowledge, the effects on non-monetary poverty and employment have not been explored. This research thus seeks to contribute to a better understanding of the effects of migration and remittances on household welfare and labour market participation in Cameroon, by answering the two following questions: (i) How do migration and remittances affect households welfare in Cameroon? (ii) How do migration and remittances affect labour market participation (self-employment) in Cameroon? These research questions are relevant for Cameroon from a policy viewpoint, considering not only the countrys rich migration experience but also the fact that the Government is currently implementing the Growth and Employment Strategy Paper, which aims to improve households living conditions and create job opportunities, among others. A well-articulated and well-managed migration and remittances policies can help the Government achieving these development objectives. Findings from the current study could then support policies and actions toward the creation of the enabling environment that fosters the contribution of migration to the countrys development. The data used for the analyses were gathered from the survey on the impact of migration on development in Cameroon conducted in 2012 by the Observatory on Migration of the African Caribbean Organization, in collaboration with the Institute of Demographic Research and Training. The data set counts 1,235 households, of which 453 (or 36.68%) have an absent migrant, and 294 (23.80%) a return migrant. For 83.45% of households with absent migrant, the migrant resides in an African country. Moreover, having an absent migrant does not necessarily leads to reception of remittances by the household. Indeed, 52.82% of households with absent migrants received remittances in the past 12 months prior to the survey. Remittances recipient households generally have higher monthly per capita expenditures than non-recipient ones. They also allocate less of their budget on food expenditures, and more on education expenditures than their non-recipient counterparts. Migration and remittances may then contribute to human capital accumulation through investment in education. To further investigate the impact of migration and remittances on household welfare, we used the Principal Component Analysis to construct an asset index combining 26 assets variables capturing ownership of household consumer goods (TV, washing machine, radio, etc.), productive assets (land, agricultural equipment, livestock, etc.), and access to basic utility services (potable water, electricity, sanitation, etc.). The welfare index is also broken down into three sub-indexes capturing ownership of household consumer goods, ownership of productive assets and access to basic utility services. Remittances can indeed reduce income poverty in the short run, but if remittances help household accumulating productive assets, diversifying their income sources through entrepreneurial activities, then a significant poverty reduction effect in the long run will be possible. The study finds that having a migrant member or receiving remittances increases the households per capita expenditures, and reduces the likelihood of living below the poverty line. In addition, migration and remittances contribute to the accumulation of consumer assets, to access to basic utility services, but do not significantly affect productive assets ownership. Besides, self-employment is more likely to occur in households having a return migrant, while receiving remittances decreases the likelihood of being self-employed. Meanwhile, the effect of the presence of absent migrants in the household on self-employment decision is negative but insignificant. Our results then show that while migrants staying abroad contribute to the left-behind families welfare improvement through the remittances they send, the returnees are more prone to set-up a business hence generating employment opportunities. To support these entrepreneurs, the Government should intervene to create an enabling environment, by improving the business environment and making it easier to access finances.

Impact of Remittances on Poverty and Financial Development in Sub-Saharan Africa

Impact of Remittances on Poverty and Financial Development in Sub-Saharan Africa
Author: Sanjeev Gupta
Publisher: International Monetary Fund
Total Pages: 50
Release: 2007-02
Genre: Business & Economics
ISBN:

This paper assesses the impact of the steadily growing remittance flows to sub-Saharan Africa (SSA). Though the region receives only a small portion of the total recorded remittances to developing countries, and the volume of aid flows to SSA swamps remittances, this paper finds that remittances, which are a stable, private transfer, have a direct poverty mitigating effect, and promote financial development. These findings hold even after factoring in the reverse causality between remittances, poverty and financial development. The paper posits that formalizing such flows can serve as an effective access point for "unbanked" individuals and households, and that the effective use of such flows can mitigate the costs of skilled out-migration in SSA.

The Impact of Remittances on Rural Poverty and Inequality in China

The Impact of Remittances on Rural Poverty and Inequality in China
Author: Nong Zhu
Publisher:
Total Pages:
Release: 2012
Genre:
ISBN:

Large numbers of agricultural labor moved from the countryside to cities after the economic reforms in China. Migration and remittances play an important role in transforming the structure of rural household income. This paper examines the impact of rural-to-urban migration on rural poverty and inequality in the case of Hubei province using the data of a 2002 household survey. Since remittances are a potential substitute for farm income, the paper presents counterfactual scenarios of what rural income, poverty, and inequality would have been in the absence of migration. The results show that, by providing alternatives to households with lower marginal labor productivity in agriculture, migration leads to an increase in rural income. In contrast to many studies that suggest the increasing share of non-farm income in total income widens inequality, this paper offers support for the hypothesis that migration tends to have egalitarian effects on rural income for three reasons: (i) migration is rational self-selection - farmers with higher agricultural productivities choose to remain in local agricultural production while those with higher expected return in urban non-farm sectors migrate; (ii) poorer households facing binding constraints of land shortage are more likely to migrate; and (iii) the poorest poor benefit disproportionately from remittances.

The Impact of Roads on Poverty Reduction

The Impact of Roads on Poverty Reduction
Author: Marie Gachassin
Publisher:
Total Pages: 39
Release: 2017
Genre:
ISBN:

Many investments in infrastructure are built on the belief that they will ineluctably lead to poverty reduction and income generation. This has entailed massive aid-financed projects in roads in developing countries. However, the lack of robust evaluations and a comprehensive theoretical framework could raise questions about current strategies in Sub-Saharan Africa. Using the second Cameroonian national household survey (Enquete Camerounaise Aupres des Menages II, 2001) and the Cameroon case study, this paper demonstrates that investing uniformly in tarred roads in Africa is likely to have a much lower impact on poverty than expected. Isolation from a tarred road is found to have no direct impact on consumption expenditures in Cameroon. The only impact is an indirect one in the access to labor activities. This paper reasserts the fact that access to roads is only one factor contributing to poverty reduction (and not necessarily the most important in many cases). Considering that increase in non-farming activities is the main driver for poverty reduction in rural Africa, the results contribute to the idea that emphasis on road investments should be given to locations where non-farming activities could be developed, which does mean that the last mile in rural areas probably should not be a road.

Remittance Markets in Africa

Remittance Markets in Africa
Author: Sanket Mohapatra
Publisher: World Bank Publications
Total Pages: 380
Release: 2011-01-01
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 0821385534

Remittances sent by African migrants have become an important source of external finance for countries in the Sub-Saharan African region. In many African countries, these flows are larger than foreign direct investment and portfolio debt and equity flows. In some cases, they are similar in size to official aid from multilateral and bilateral donors. Remittance markets in Africa, however, remain less developed than other regions. The share of informal or unrecorded remittances is among the highest for Sub-Saharan African countries. Remittance costs tend to be significantly higher in Africa both for sending remittances from outside the region and for within-Africa (South-South) remittance corridors. At the same time, the remittance landscape in Africa is rapidly changing with the introduction of new remittance technologies, in particular mobile money transfers and branchless banking. This book presents findings of surveys of remittance service providers conducted in eight Sub-Saharan African countries and in three key destination countries. It looks at issues relating to costs, competition, innovation and regulation, and discusses policy options for leveraging remittances for development in Africa.

Shock Waves

Shock Waves
Author: Stephane Hallegatte
Publisher: World Bank Publications
Total Pages: 227
Release: 2015-11-23
Genre: Business & Economics
ISBN: 1464806748

Ending poverty and stabilizing climate change will be two unprecedented global achievements and two major steps toward sustainable development. But the two objectives cannot be considered in isolation: they need to be jointly tackled through an integrated strategy. This report brings together those two objectives and explores how they can more easily be achieved if considered together. It examines the potential impact of climate change and climate policies on poverty reduction. It also provides guidance on how to create a “win-win†? situation so that climate change policies contribute to poverty reduction and poverty-reduction policies contribute to climate change mitigation and resilience building. The key finding of the report is that climate change represents a significant obstacle to the sustained eradication of poverty, but future impacts on poverty are determined by policy choices: rapid, inclusive, and climate-informed development can prevent most short-term impacts whereas immediate pro-poor, emissions-reduction policies can drastically limit long-term ones.

Aspects of Poverty and Inequality in Cameroon

Aspects of Poverty and Inequality in Cameroon
Author: Wokia-azi Ndangle Kumase
Publisher: Peter Lang Gmbh, Internationaler Verlag Der Wissenschaften
Total Pages: 0
Release: 2010
Genre: Political Science
ISBN: 9783631595350

Originally presented as the author's thesis (doctoral)--Universiteat Geottingen, 2009.