Obligation and Opportunity: The Influence of Gender, Earnings, and Household Obligations on Thai Migrants’ Remittance Behavior

Kim Korinek, University of Utah
Barbara Entwisle, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill

Longitudinal data collected among a sample of rural-urban migrants in Thailand are used to assess the impact of gendered socioeconomic constraints upon remittance behavior. Measuring remittance both as a dichotomous and interval-level outcome, we estimate a series of ordinary regression and logistic regressions, each corrected for sample selection bias, which demonstrate that, compared to male migrants, female migrants exhibit a greater incidence of remitting, larger amounts of monetary remittance, and remitting in a manner that appears more responsive to economic demands experienced in both origin and destination households. The relative generosity of female remittance is also exhibited in the more sizable amounts they remit to origin households per baht earned. Our findings contribute to existing research on the logic of remittance by showing how the capacity to remit and the experience of economic demands differentially inform male and female migrants' remittance behavior.