The linkages between international migration, remittances and household welfare in Nigeria

Despite the increase in international remittance flows to Nigeria, there is dearth of studies on the linkages between international migration, remittances and household welfare in the country. This paper investigated the linkages between international migration, remittances and household welfare in Nigeria by examining household consumer and durable assets as welfare indicators as against the use of income and recurrent expenditure as indicators of the impact of migration and remittance on households. Data was from the 2009 World Bank Migration survey and were analyzed by descriptive statistics, asset index technique, and quintile estimation, ordinary least square and probit regressions. More of the migrants were single, males, students, had primary education, and had a mean age of 30 years prior to migration. The main determinants of receipt of remittance by households were age of the household head, region of residence, place of residence, and employment status of head of household. On aggregate levels, the proportion of remittance-receiving households in the fourth welfare quintile (13.88%) was more than non-remittance-receiving households (11.47%), while the proportion of non-migrant households in the fourth quintile (8.01%) was greater than the migrant households (.00%). The results also showed that having an international migrant and receiving of remittances significantly increases household welfare in Nigeria. Other variables that significantly affected household welfare in the area were age of the head of household, household size, region of residence, education and rural/urban place of residence.