The new Greek emigration and the remittances sending patterns in the crisis period
The post-2008 crisis has altered migration and remittance sending patterns in Greece. It has entailed an increase of emigration rates on the one hand and a decrease of the remittances inflows on the other. The aim of this paper is to measure and understand the factors explaining this rather paradoxical development that goes against the traditional countercyclical assumption. To account for that we conducted a two-step statistical model. First, we assessed the impact of the crisis on the established diaspora whose remitting behaviour changed dramatically in response to the crisis. We argue that the decrease of trust in the political, institutional and financial systems is positively correlated with a diminution of remittances inflows. Second, we argue that the post-crisis diaspora’s demography is an important factor influencing the new emigrant’s remitting behaviour. More specifically, the economic background and the familial sociocultural profile of the emigrant’s household seems to be determinant. At the theoretical level the paper builds on Faini’s (2006) assumptions and expands his static model in the dynamic context of the crisis. Remittances as emigrant’s migration mental equation is also addressed.
Author bio
Aymeric Faure holds a Master in International Relations from the London School of Economics and Political Science, a Master in Finance and Business from Neoma Business School (France) and a Diploma in Geography from La Sorbonne. His focus areas are migrations, remittances’ drivers and consequences especially in Greece in the post-crisis period; as well as humanitarian aid, migration-conflicts-climate change interactions, and post crisis recovery. He now works as a government partnerships consultant at the United Nations World Food Programme in Rome. Aymeric Faure is also Deputy Editor in Chief of the Open Diplomacy institute, an organisation that promotes International Politics knowledge among students and young professionals, in partnership with the French Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Foundation for Strategic Research.
Manolis Pratsinakis is the Onassis Foundation Research Fellow at the Department of Politics and International Relations, University of Oxford. He was previously a Marie Curie postdoctoral fellow at the University of Macedonia (2015-2017), a visiting fellow at the University of Sussex (2016) and a lecturer at the University of Amsterdam (2013-2015). His academic interests broadly concern the study of migration and nationalism. He has done research and published on immigrant-native relations, ethnic boundaries and categorization, everyday nationhood, brain drain, and intra-EU mobility in the post 2008 period. Manolis has studied Geography and Sociology (with honors) and completed his PhD in 2013 in Anthropology. His MA studies were supported by a Huygens scholarship from Nuffic and his PhD research by a postgraduate IKY scholarship.