This project will generate new knowledge about remittances from immigrants in Norway, use Norwegian data to contribute to the international literature on remittances, and facilitate the development of remittance-related policies that better reconcile conflicting interests. By combining quantitative and qualitative data, the project will address the complex relationship between remittance-sending and integration. The project is guided by four research questions:
- How is the sending of remittances related to integration?
- How do immigrants in Norway choose remittance transfer mechanisms?
- How is the transfer and expenditure of remittances perceived by senders and receivers?
- How can Norwegian policy better reconcile the different interests related to remittances?
A strategic choice has been made to concentrate parts of the data collection and analysis on two immigrant groups: Pakistanis and Somalis. Such a choice is necessary in order to collect country-specific data also at the receiving end. It is widely recognized that remittance dynamics are affected by national factors at both ends of the transfer, and that so-called remittance corridors (e.g. Norway-Pakistan) are often the appropriate unit of analysis. The project team will conduct interviews with Pakistanis and Somalis and in Norway and fieldwork in Pakistan and East Africa
In addition to the in-depth study of transfers to Pakistan and Somalia, the project will make use of statistics from the Living Conditions of Immigrants (LKI) survey. The survey includes immigrants from ten countries (Bosnia-Herzegovina, Chile, Iraq, Iran, Pakistan, Serbia, Somalia, Sri Lanka, Turkey and Vietnam).
