ABSTRACT
The motivation of sending remittances by migrants is for the upliftment of their left-behind families in the home state (altruistic interests) or for self-interest or exchange motives. This chapter aims to understand what motivates Gulf migrants to send remittances to the home state, Kerala, and does the motivation change with an increase in the economic status of the left-behind family?
We use the Kerala Migration Survey (2016 and 2018) household data to understand the different motives behind remitting. We applied the mixed-motive model of Jimenez and Brown (2008) to analyse the change in motivation to remit. The model employs a spline function given the non-linearity of the income gap model. While exchange motive works more in cases of a positive income gap, altruistic motive works in the case of a negative income gap. Another important finding of the study is that in high-income households, the remittance sending will increase not only as a means of exchange, but also in the form of a Veblen goods-driven way of altruism.
