1 Sending Money Home: Womens Stories of Money and Migration Supriya Singh Presentation at the BRI Seminar RMIT Business Melbourne 9 May 2005

2 Main Themes Seeing remittances as transnational family money, reaffirming the boundaries of the family unit; Focus on womens remittances, power and status in the transnational and nuclear family; Making place for domestic/public relationships within the discussion of globalization and diasporas – connecting the personal and the social; Using family as a dominant metaphor to chart diasporic relationships; Multiple migrations shift attention from the homeland and the diaspora to relationship between nodes of the diaspora.

3 The Personal Experience of Money, Family and Diaspora Born in India, migrated to Malaysia and then to Australia; Children born in Malaysia and one son lives in Australia; Have one sister resident in the US but too- ing and fro-ing to India; Have a sister and extended family in India; Nephew in US and now in Singapore.

4 Workers Remittances, 2003 MexicoUS$ 13.2 billion IndiaUS$ 8.4 billion Philippines US$ 8.0 billion ………. China US$ 2.4 billion Informal money transfers can account for 15 to 80 per cent of the true amount of remittances. Global Development Finance, 2004; Buencamino and Gorbunov, 2002

5 Factors Influencing Remittances Temporary migrants send more; Recent migrants with families left behind; Unskilled workers send a larger share of their income; Women remit more of their income; Earning power in the host country; Cheaper ways of sending money; Some money moving to official channels because of anti money-laundering legislation; Export of professional and business services.

6 Impact of Remittances Second only to foreign direct investment; Increases foreign exchange balances; Reduces poverty at the regional and local economies; Change in attitude to the value of NRIs; Setting up of an NRI ministry, NRI cities; India fairs for NRIs; proposals for separate courts to deal with NRI property disputes and marriages.

7 Sending Money Home UnUn The family is the domestic financial unit; Remittances occur mostly with first generation migrants; Changes because of increasing individualism in the parental and childrens generations; Lessening of the wealth gap between parents and children.

8 A Research Agenda Connecting remittances to money cultures. Exploring the characteristics of transnational family money vs local family money; Gender, migration, family and the meanings of money; Globalization as a domestic phenomenon. Rethinking diasporas as a relationship between nodes rather than between the centre and the periphery; The congruence of media and money networks.