Title: Remittances and Livelihood Diversification: Building Resilient Household Economies
Abstract: The chapter argues that the credit and insurance markets in the least-developed countries are also under-developed. In the absence of a formal or informal market for credit or insurance, households have no insurance and limited or no opportunity to self-finance production or investment in agriculture and non-agriculture sectors. The analysis of interviews with 36 migrant households revealed that remittances enable households to overcome missing or incomplete credit by providing landless and small migrant households access to capital to lease agricultural land for production which contributes to removing stresses and worries about their food security and buying back mortgaged land to re-establish the rights of the individual to cultivate the land. Remittances also enable households to take strategic decisions to invest in a variety of income-generating agricultural and non-agriculture-related activities so as to minimize risk from loss of crops or sudden loss of income. The chapter also highlights that remittances enable households to invest for purchasing housing land and construction so that they can secure their properties against floods or riverbank erosion, plan for a return to the village, and to enhance their social prestige and status in their local village. For each of the households, remittances translated into increasing the household's social resilience and social capital.
Publication Year: 2017
Publication Date: 2017-01-01
Language: en
Type: book-chapter
Indexed In: ['crossref']
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Cited By Count: 3
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