In this article we revisit the concept of social remittances. First, we show how people's experiences before migrating strongly influence what they do in the countries where they settle; this, in turn, affects what they remit back to their homelands. Second, just as scholars differentiate between individual and collective economic remittances, we also distinguish between individual and collective social remittances. While individuals communicate ideas and practices to each other in their roles as friends, family members or neighbours, they also communicate in their capacity as organisational actors, which has implications for organisational management and capacity-building. Finally, we argue that social remittances can scale up from local-level impacts to affect regional and national change and scale out to affect other domains of practice.

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Social remittances reconsidered

The India Migration Bibliography covers over 3,000 books, research articles and reports written on the subject of internal migration, international migration and diaspora, related to India. The bibliography is inter-disciplinary and provides sections with selected publications by themes, regions, cities, overseas destinations and sample surveys. It will be of considerable interest to academics and non-academics working on migration related issues.

India Migration Bibliography

This paper shows the remarkable persistence of remittance-based migrations in India across the twentieth century. Drawing on recent national survey data and unique census data at the district level, we show that for regions covering 20% of the population of India, poor and rich, mobility has been persistently high in magnitude and has been male-dominated, remittance-based and circular in nature for well over a 100 years. This paper highlights the importance of social networks and deep rooted migration cultures influenced by source region conditions, in explaining migration persistence, and argues that remittance economies constitute a unique model of development that needs to be judged separately from other development models.

Migration persistence across twentieth century India

Despite substantial evidence pointing to a looming Malthusian catastrophe, governmental measures to reduce population have been opposed both by religious conservatives and by many liberals, especially liberal feminists. Liberal critics have claimed that 'utilitarian' population policies violate a 'fundamental right of reproductive liberty'. This essay argues that reproductive liberty should not be considered a fundamental human right, or certainly not an indefeasible right. It should, instead, be strictly regulated by a global agreement designed to reduce population to a sustainable level. Three major points are discussed: 1) the current state of the overpopulation problem; 2) the claim of a fundamental human right of reproductive liberty; 3) an outline of a global agreement to address overpopulation as a 'tragedy of the commons'.

Reproductive liberty and overpopulation

The article examines the impact of international migration on the labour supply of male and female left-behind household members in both market and non-market work. In addition, we examine the labo...

International Migration, Remittances and Labour Force Participation of Left-behind Family Members: A Study of Kerala:

The impact of job migration on households across Kerala has its impact on a greater flow of remittances from abroad, which in turn leads to improved living standards and increased consumption levels More long-term changes, as this paper emphasises, are related to education Higher educated workers spend more time abroad, while for the women, an increased access to education also leads to improved health indicators - a decline in the overall birth rate and a lowering of infant mortality rates

Sushanta K Banerjee

Papers

Has Emigration Influenced Kerala's Living Standards?