Remittances, Standard of Living and Integration: A study of Tamils living in Scandinavian capitals (REMIT-INT)

The primary objective of the project was to study the remittance practices and their consequences with standard of living and the integration process of Tamils living in Scandinavian capitals, Oslo Copenhagen and Stockholm. The project adopted three hypotheses. These are described as follows: 1. Remittance sending has been largely a first-generation practice and the moral obligation for sending remittances is minimal among the second generation Tamils. 2. Remittance sending has impact on standard of living; and positively contributes to better labour market and housing conditions, but negatively contributes to health problems and relative poverty among remittance-sending Tamils and thus plays an important role in integration issues. 3. Remittance practices have association to place differences and have an impact on standard of living and integration through the differences in places and available social capital. The overall methodological approach of the project takes case study approach that includes data from different sources. Although both qualitative and quantitative data have taken into analysis, the study is mostly qualitative. Fieldwork for the study has been conducted in Oslo, Stockholm and in Denmark. Since very few Tamils live in Copenhagen, the study included another two places in Denmark. The following findings are derived from the project. 1. Remittance sending has been largely a first generation practice. This finding has not been based on quantitative analysis but based on household interviews, and participant observation of various community gatherings and meetings. 2. The obligation for sending remittances has been reduced over the period due to diminishing scale of homeland contacts even among the first generation Tamils. 3. Some interest has been shown in investment oriented remittances among first generation Tamils, but not in considerable scale yet. This has largely been due to lack of trust and confidence on return of investment due to corruption, military occupation of Tamil homeland in Sri Lanka and other institutional barriers. 4. Changes have ocurred in remittance priorities. Family oriented remittances have been the first priority, but changes occur in pattern. The frequency of sending remittance has become longer. Remittances guided by obligation for livelihood purposes have become weaker, but extra expenses such as medical expenditures, education expenditures, employment creation investment have gained priority. Remittances based on maintaining and building social capital have become more relevant. 5. Remittances for political purposes have become less relevant. The purpose for welfare has gained more attention. 6. Second generation keeps minimal contacts with the parents' homeland and their role in sending remittances is not significant. The number of income earning second generation has also been low. 7. Parents encourage their children to increase contacts with their homeland (country of origin) and try to motivate them in sending remittances to their families. These strategies include emotionally informing them about the difficult situation of the family members, homeland visits, building holiday houses, interacting with the family members in the homeland etc. 8. The obligation of sending remittances has some impacts in their standard of living and integration with the host countries, but it seems that this has not been a crucial factor in this regards. Remittance senders adopt different strategies to balance their lives; and many give priorities to their children rather than sending remittances. 9. Grown up children influence the behavior of their parents with regards to remittance sending. Children advise the parents to take decisions on economic rationality, but not on moral obligations. 9. It seems that places have some impact on remittance sending. The data collected show that differences in employment opportunities between places, differences in salary scale and differences in social network have some impact on decision on remittance sending. 10. The need for sending remittances has given motivation to active labour market participation to some extent.Some research participants experienced ill health due to hard labour for the purpose of generating more money to send remittances. 11.Standard of living on economic terms has not largely been affected due to remittance practice, but the need for more money for remittance purposes has some implication on the standard of living in qualitative terms. For example, qualitative time spent with family and children has been affected when parents have allocated more time for work. Remittance practice based on moral obligation has contributed to high work morale (preparedness to work with any kind of work and offer hard work) to certain extent, which has also be considered one of the reasons for the Tamils? high participation in the labour market. Web-page: http://www.sv.uio.no/i

The primary objective of the project is to study the remittance practices and their consequences with standard of living and the integration process of Tamils living in Scandinavian capitals, Oslo Copenhagen and Stockholm. Similar numbers of Tamils live at present in Norway and Denmark numbering around 13,000. The population in Sweden is far smaller and estimated to be around 2000 only. At present there are more than 8000 Tamils living in Oslo, representing around two-thirds of all Tamils living in Nor way. In Copenhagen, fewer than 500 Tamils live, and Stockholm has around 1000 Tamils. These numbers include the second generation, numbering about one-third of the total population of Tamils. Scandinavian countries, though with many similarities among t hem, do also present certain differences in the context of immigrant integration policy. The scale difference between the places does also matter in the context of the study, making a study of this nature both challenging and interesting. The project a dopts three hypotheses. These are described as follows: 1. Remittance sending has been largely a first-generation practice and the moral obligation for sending remittances is minimal among the second generation Tamils. 2. Remittance sending has impact o n standard of living; and positively contributes to better labour market and housing conditions, but negatively contributes to health problems and relative poverty among remittance-sending Tamils and thus plays an important role in integration issues. 3. Remittance practices have association to place differences and have an impact on standard of living and integration through the differences in places and available social capital. This project would adopt a mixed methodology, combining quantitative and qualitative methods. As a prime source of data collection, it is planned to conduct a household survey. This study will also include a qualitative segment of interviews with the life story approach.