Exploring Links between Education, Migration and Remittances: The Philippine Case
| Author | Emmanuel Yujuico,Mona D. Valisno |
| Date | 01 October 2010 |
| Published date | 01 October 2010 |
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1111/j.1758-5899.2010.00050.x |
Exploring Links between Education,
Migration and Remittances:
The Philippine Case
Emmanuel Yujuico
London School of Economics and Political Science
Mona D. Valisno
Department of Education of the Philippines
For developing countries, remittances have long since
surpassed official development aid as a source of external
finance. Many countries with large migrant stocks receive
more in remittances than in foreign direct investment.
Here, we explore interrelationships between education,
migration and remittances in the Philippines. Much litera-
ture has been devoted to debating brain drain versus gain
as well as the costs and benefits of workers’ remittances.
Here, we provide preliminary thoughts on how the recent
global financial crisis informs these dynamics during
changeable global conditions and its implications for other
developing countries.
As in other migrant-sending countries, remittances to
the Philippines – the world’s fourth largest recipient of
such inflows – were expected to fall substantially in 2009.
Given difficult economic conditions in several destination
countries, the knock-on effects of lost employment and
stagnant wages were generally believed to cast ominous
portents. Both the World Bank and International Mone-
tary Fund (IMF) predicted declines, as did financial ser-
vices providers Citigroup, the Royal Bank of Scotland and
HSBC. The latter even predicted a 20 per cent decline in
remittance inflows amid the crisis even though they have
grown every year since 2001. Development administrators,
too, have expressed wariness about falling remittances due
to the crisis (Alexander, 2010).
Remarkably, in not a single month did nominal recorded
remittances to the Philippines fall on a year-on-year basis
from 2008 to 2009, eventually totalling $17.3 billion (BSP,
2010). We believe that this is not a serendipitous occur-
rence but an outcome born of distinct policy choices.
Although administrations come and go, migrant workers
remain an indispensable constituency given their impor-
tance in helping to insulate the country from balance of
payments problems. Moreover, the Philippine example
holds insights for other labour-exporting countries.
In this commentary, we will discuss preferences from the
panoply of policy options that have helped create this
result. Surpassing all others is the challenge to equip
migrants with relevant skills that the global marketplace
requires and that, in turn, lend them much-needed protec-
tion. Second is that of broadening geographic possibilities
for migrants set against a global backdrop of widespread
scepticism of and even outright disdain for open borders.
Taken together, measures to address these challenges
suggest that migrant-sending states will have a significant
role to play as the global governance of migration remains
a patchwork quilt at best.
Challenges and trade-offs
Domestic debates surrounding migration in the Philippines
are not germane to it, with issues like the role of state pro-
motion, brain drain and worker vulnerability looming large
in the national consciousness (Commission on Population,
2007). Yet, a point of agreement for the government and
its critics on migration policy is the need to upskill those
seeking employment abroad. While the Philippines devotes
considerable resources to protecting migrants, it can only
go so far given its limited institutional capabilities and the
limited global will to discuss migration multilaterally.
Hence, education lends protection by improving workers’
bargaining leverage during wage negotiations, raising the
likelihood of employment in regularised occupations cov-
ered by laws on working conditions, and – in fields such as
engineering at least – establishing camaraderie with fellow
professionals worldwide.
Efforts to raise the educational attainment of Filipino
migrants can be traced to the Migrant Workers and Over-
seas Filipinos Act of 1995, which recognises that the
ultimate protection for all migrant workers is the posses-
sion of skills. Accordingly, deployment should increasingly
be geared towards skilled workers. As late as 1998, surveys
indicate that less than a quarter of Overseas Filipino
Workers (OFWs) had a college degree. By 2008, however,
40 per cent were tertiary educated (see Figure 1).
Global Policy Volume 1 . Issue 3. October 2010
Copyright 2010 London School of Economics and Political Science and John Wiley & Sons Ltd. Global Policy (2010) 1:3 doi: 10.1111/j.1758-5899.2010.00050.x
Practitioner Commentary
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