Impact of Remittances on Household Economy: A Case of India

The importance of remittance is well known. The aim of this paper is to find out characteristics of internal and international migrants who send remittances, to find out influence of remittances on household income and understand use pattern of remittance by receiving households. To achieve above objectives data are derived from National Sample Survey of conducted during 2007-08 and India Human Development Survey of 2005. Both surveys are large scale survey conducted all over country on representative sample basis. From these sources information on age, sex, place of origin and destination, amount of remittances and use pattern are analyzed.

The analysis uses information on out-migrants who moved within and outside country. The results shows large volumes of out-migrants are internal but remittances received from emigrants are much higher. The mobility among lower social groups is less and similarly less amount of remittances. The higher economic group reported higher mobility rate within and outside country. The remittance increases with increase in economic status of households. The analysis of these two survey shows that benefit of migration in India is reaped by socially and economically better off. High proportion of household reported spending on food items followed by education and health care.