Remittances and Women’s Agency: Managing Networks of Obligation among Burmese Migrant Workers in Thailand

Of the total migrant remittances to developing countries, it is estimated that some 30–45 per cent are from other developing countries. Such South–South remittances have not received a great deal of attention in the literature but their volume indicates that they are significant and should not be ignored. This chapter explores a particular example of such South–South flows – namely the remittances of Burmese migrant workers from Thailand. Because of the ongoing economic failure in Myanmar,1 many young Burmese come to Thailand, either with documents allowing them to work as “irregular” migrant workers or without any kind of documentation (Kusakabe and Pearson, 2010a), and like other migrant workers they tend to remit relatively substantive sums to their families back home. Official remittances to Myanmar were 0.4 per cent of its gross domestic product (GDP) in 2009, but a 2008 study showed that the actual level of remittances is at least four times as large as the official figures from Integrated Regional Information Networks indicate (IRIN, 2010). The World Bank (2008) reported that USD 125 million was remitted through formal channels in 2007. However, IRIN (2010) noted that remittances from Thailand alone were estimated to amount to USD 300 million, which is five times the reported level of overall foreign direct investment in Myanmar.2