The Impact of the Presence of an External Migrant and Remittance Inflows on Women’s Empowerment, Punjab

Abstract

Pakistan is a developing country, and like other developing countries faces issues regarding gender inequality.At the same time, a considerable number of people have migrated from Pakistan over the last 50 yearsand the inflow of remittances has increased over the past several decades, which is marked as an important source of foreign exchange in Pakistan. This research aims to analyze the impact of external remittances and presence of an external migrant in a household on women’s empowerment.Women’s empowerment is measured through women’sattitudes towards domestic violence. The data set being used is Multiple Indicator Cluster Survey 2014 (MICS) for Punjab. Women have been divided into 3 categories; All females, married females and unmarried females. These 3 categories have further been divided into age groups of 15-30 (younger women) and 31-49 (older women). Ordinary least squares model and probit model have been used, and two separate instrument variables have been used: rainfall shocks for external remittances and historic migration for external migrant. The results show that households receiving external remittances have a higher women’s empowerment,since women tend to gain the freedom in terms of making decisions over the use of remittances, and are less likely to consider that it is acceptable for a husband to beat his wife. On the other hand households having an external migrant have a lower women’s empowerment unless there is a female household head present in the household, since there could be a loss of decision making power for women living in joint family systems, whose husbands have migrated but this impact is offset if the household is headed by a female. Older women experience a greater impact on theirempowerment in the cases of households receiving remittances and having an external migrant.