Forced Migration and Remittances: The Role of Capacities and Family Members’ Place of Residence

Lenore Sauer , Federal Institute for Population Research (BiB)

This contribution aims to analyse the determinants of remittances of refugees living in Germany by focusing on Eritreans and Syrians, two important countries of origin of recent flows of forced migration towards Germany. Applying descriptive statistics as well as different regression models, I examine in particular the interrelation between different family arrangements and networks as well as the financial capacity and the sending of remittances. Although there is a substantial body of research on remittances of labour migrants (mainly in the context of the new economics of labour migration), research on this topic is still fragmentary with regard to refugees. The empirical data stems from the Germany-wide representative quantitative survey "Forced Migration and Transnational Family Arrangements - Eritrean and Syrian Refugees in Germany" (TransFAR), conducted in 2020. This new dataset with over 1,450 observations contains detailed information on the whereabouts of close and extended family members of recent refugees, on personal social networks as well as on mutual support arrangements of geographically separated families. By taking a comparative approach, similarities and heterogeneities between refugee families from Eritrea and Syria are disentangled, and the main determinants of the resulting differences are investigated. First descriptive results reveal that almost 20 % of the Eritreans as well as of the Syrians send remittances. This is associated with the family members’ specific place of residence. Moreover, gender, existing family networks in Germany, identification with the country of origin and the capacity to remit are important determinants of providing financial support.

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 Presented in Session 21. International Migration