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Compulsory and Voluntary Remittances: Evidence from Child Domestic Workers in Tunisia

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Abstract

Based on a survey we conducted among domestic workers in Tunisia, we find that slightly more than half are younger than 18 years old. Most live with their employer and have their wages remitted directly to their parents. We define such remittances as compulsory as opposed to voluntary, and establish that having more young sisters means a higher likelihood of observing compulsory remittances, but that voluntary remittances increase with the number of young brothers. Parents who own some farm assets, or their house, can extract more compulsory remittances from their daughters than other parents. Older domestic workers face lower compulsory remittances, and voluntarily remit less. Finally, we reject the standard tobit model in favour of a type-2 tobit or Gragg's specification.

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  • Benoit Dostie & Désiré Vencatachellum, 2004. "Compulsory and Voluntary Remittances: Evidence from Child Domestic Workers in Tunisia," Cahiers de recherche 04-04, HEC Montréal, Institut d'économie appliquée.
    • Handle: RePEc:iea:carech:0404
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    Cited by:

    1. Ingela Alger & Jörgen W. Weibull, 2007. "Family ties, incentives and development: A model of coerced altruism," Carleton Economic Papers 07-10, Carleton University, Department of Economics, revised 2008.
    2. Elisabetta Magnani & Garima Verma & Anu Rammohan, 2012. "Intra-household Competition for Care: The Role of Bequest-regulating Social Norms," Working Papers 201206, ARC Centre of Excellence in Population Ageing Research (CEPAR), Australian School of Business, University of New South Wales.
    3. Shuburna Chodhuary & Md. Akramul Islam & Jesmin Akter, 2013. "Exploring the Causes and Process of Becoming Child Domestic Worker," Working Papers id:5256, eSocialSciences.

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    More about this item

    Keywords

    Domestic Workers; Child Labor; Compulsory and Voluntary Remittances; Tunisia.;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • R23 - Urban, Rural, Regional, Real Estate, and Transportation Economics - - Household Analysis - - - Regional Migration; Regional Labor Markets; Population
    • J12 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demographic Economics - - - Marriage; Marital Dissolution; Family Structure
    • O15 - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth - - Economic Development - - - Economic Development: Human Resources; Human Development; Income Distribution; Migration

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