The Gendered Impact of Remittances

• In Event: Gendered Political Economy

Abstract

Flows of remittances to developing countries have increased significantly since the early 2000s. A growing literature examines the political, social, and economic implications of remittances in source and recipient countries, but this scholarship has yet to fully engage the impact of such money transfers on shifting gender roles in the Global South. Through a multi-country statistical analysis of public opinion data from the Arab Barometer, the Americas Barometer, and the Afrobarometer, we consider the impact of remittances on attitudes towards women's rights in countries of the Middle East and North Africa, Latin America, and Sub-saharan Africa. We use Deniz Kandiyoti’s (1988) notion of “patriarchal bargains” in conjunction with case studies of Egypt, Nigeria, and Mexico--the three countries receiving the most private transfers in their respective region--to unpack and analyze how the socioeconomic context of diasporas in source countries conditions the promotion of conservative gender attitudes in recipient countries.

Authors

• Bozena Christina Welborne, Smith College

• Clara Broekaert