Abstract
Remittance from out-migrants to their original families is a part of the inter-house-hold family support network. On the one hand, if a society is not migration-oriented, the network should be local. On the other hand, if it is migration-oriented, it is plausible that the network extends beyond local boundaries and that the nature of support may be changed or extended from exchange of visits and services with local kin to an increase in the flow of remittances from the out-migrants. Otherwise, outmigration could lead to erosion of ties among families over geographical space. This paper attempts, based on a sample survey conducted in 1985 in two rural villages in Java, Indonesia, to measure the importance of remittances from the out-migrants to their original families both from the migrants' and the recipients' perspectives and to elicit social as well as economic meanings of remittances in two communities where out-migration is characteristic. The study first finds that a higher incidence of remittance occurs in the later stages of the life cycle of the family of origin, when, in addition, a larger number of senders contribute to its maintenance. A higher incidence of remittance is also found in the lower income strata of households. The study also finds that the lower the household income of origin, the higher the dependency on remittances from migrants. Additional findings show that as time away from their original families increases, migrants tend more to be senders and that the married migrants living with their family of procreation tend to send a higher amount of remittances to their original families than those who are currently not married. These findings demonstrate that while remittances certainly enhance the income of the original families, social ties between senders and recipients constitute another important feature of these income flows. The social aspect of remittances as discussed in this case study suggests that, although we should be careful in generalizing the results from this study, remittances from Javanese migrants to their original families is an ubiquitous phenomenon in the country, occurring outside the villages considered in this study, indeed throughout Java.
