Remittances and Inequality: A Question of Migration Stage and Geographic Scale

• Published in: Economic geography Vol. 74; no. 1; pp. 8 - 25
• Main Author: Jones, Richard C.
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Oxford, UK Routledge 01.01.1998; Blackwell Publishing Ltd; Clark University; Clark Univ; Taylor & Francis Ltd
• Subjects: 1987; Americas; Arbeitsmigranten; Decision making; Demography; Developing Countries; Early adopters; Economic geography; Economics; Einkommensverteilung; Emigration and Immigration; Entrepreneurs; Entwicklungsländer; Equality; Global economy; Globalization; Human migration; Hypotheses; Income; Income distribution; Income inequality; Inequality; International migration; Labor migration; Latin America; LDCs; Macroeconomics; Median family income; Median income; Mexico; Migration; migration stage; North America; Per capita; Population; Population Characteristics; Population Dynamics; Public officials; Remittances; Rural areas; Rural Population; Rural urban migration; Rücküberweisungen; Socioeconomic Factors; spatial scale; Time Factors; Towns; Wage-employment relationship; wage-labor migration; Zacatecas (Staat); Americas; Mexico; North America; Latin America; Origin; Americas; International Migration; Migration; Income; North America; Socioeconomic Factors; Latin America; Economic Factors; Time Factors; Microeconomic Factors; Rural Population; Population Characteristics; Inequalities; Mexico; Population; Developing Countries; Demographic Factors; Remittances; Population Dynamics
• ISSN: 0013-0095; 1944-8287
• DOI: 10.1111/j.1944-8287.1998.tb00102.x

Over the past decade, the benefits from economic globalization have bypassed most developing countries, and as a result international wage-labor migration has taken on new importance. The impact of remittances on migrant origins is still, however, a subject of considerable debate. Some researchers find that remittances tend to increase income inequalities, whereas others find just the opposite-even, upon occasion, when they are writing about the same place. This study offers a spatiotemporal perspective in which the stage of migration and the spatial scale at which inequalities are measured are conceptualized as controls that help explain these divergent views. I describe a case study, based on 1988 household survey data collected in central Zacatecas state, Mexico. Interfamilial inequalities are found first to decrease and then to increase as a place's migration experience deepens. Throughout this experience, however, rural incomes improve relative to urban ones, since remittances are targeted to the predominantly rural areas of origin.