Document Type

Article

Publication Date

1-18-2015

Comments

This is the authors' final manuscript version. The version of record was originally published in the Journal of International Migration and Integration, 17, 539-567 (2016). The final version is available at link.springer.com.

DOI 10.1007/s12134-015-0423-3

Abstract

Cultural norms embody the communalism and familism that characterize social structures and traditions of care among certain identity groups, notably, Hispanics. In turn, they affect remitting behavior as they do family dynamics, thereby extending care transnationally. Using the 2006 Latino National Survey, the largest instrument that captures socio-economic variables and political perspectives among Hispanics residing in the U.S., we construct a Hispanic identity index that is used to capture the role of cultural norms in remittance behavior. This index is used as an explanatory variable in a logit model for the probability and frequency of remitting money. We find that both the probability and frequency of remitting increase with higher levels of self- defined familism as reflected by the Hispanic index. This effect is stronger among males, renters, foreign-born non-U.S. citizens, and migrants with fewer years of residence in the U.S. Incorporating variables such as our Hispanic identity index may shed light on a relatively unexplored area in the field of economics that explains remitting behavior.

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The views expressed in this paper are solely those of the author.