Labour market performance and migration flows - European ...

European CommissionOccasional Paper 60, Volume Iobserved that the women left behind increased their participation in the labour market in Egyptbecause there was a need at the country level to mobilize women to replace migrant men, seems hardto defend and generalize.It is also interesting that the eventual job-creation effects determined by migrant remittances can beunevenly distributed across genders; Vargas-Lundius (2004) argues that the receipt of remittances in theorigin communities stimulates the creation of jobs where men represent a disproportionate share of theworkers – for example, in the construction sector –, so that remittances could reinforce existing genderinequalities in labour market outcomes such as wages and unemployment rates.Finally, remittances do certainly contribute to boost informal employment. In their study ofdeterminants of remittances of migrants coming from Mediterranean countries established in France,Mouhoud, Oudinet and Unan (2008) stress that the bulk of remittances from Mediterranean migrants arenot sent through the formal financial circuits, and are hence difficult to check. The same is true of Egypt:recent figures for 2006 still suggest that Hewala (32%) and friends/relatives (31%) are the two mostpopular ways for migrants to send remittances to Egypt, with almost two thirds of households receivingremittances by these methods. Only 22% of current migrants send their transfers through the bankingsystem (Wahba 2007). These unregistered remittances could be feeding the informal economy, inparticular in the construction sector, which absorb a high proportion of those flows (see Collyer 2004 andSection 5.4).Turning to direct evidence from the region, several AMCs are high in the world ranking in terms ofremittances to GDP ratio, with Lebanon (22.8% of GDP) and Jordan (20.3%) in the Top 10 receivingcountries in 2006 (see Table 5.3.2). In absolute terms, Egypt, Morocco and Lebanon are amongst the20 top remittance recipient countries in the world, and AMCs are the group of countries in the worldwith the highest per capita remittances level. However, once again data on remittances is shaky, withestimates for remittances to the region showing a high dispersion. What, at any rate, is clear is that, inthe AMCs, remittances are a much more important financial flow than foreign direct investments (inLebanon, for instance, $5.2 billion vs. $2.6 billion in 2006).Table 5.3.2 Remittances in Arab Mediterranean CountriesFlow of remittances received(2007, billion US$)Remittances% of GDP (2006)Morocco 5.7 9,5%Algeria 2.9 2.2%Tunisia 1.7 5%Egypt 5.9 5%Palestine 0.6 14.7%Jordan 2.9 20.3%Lebanon 5.5 22.8%Syria 0.8 2.3%Source: Migration and Remittances Factbook 2008, World Bank.However, it has to be noted that these are official remittances, i.e. transmitted officially and hencecertainly underestimates. More recent figures by the Central Bank of Egypt, for instance, show recordhigh remittances amounting to $8.5 billion in 2008 (44% more than the official figures). Lebanon,Algeria and Tunisia also experienced record levels of remittances in 2008 (see Fargues 2009, p. 34). In76