Remittances and social capital: livelihood strategies of Timorese workers participating in the Australian Seasonal Worker Programme

Annie Wu, Jeffrey Neilson and John Connell

Third World Quarterly, 2023, vol. 44, issue 1, 96-114

Abstract: Social and financial remittances from the Australian Seasonal Worker Programme (SWP) have transformed the livelihood capabilities of participating households from Timor-Leste. Timorese workers generally participate in SWP for a six-month period, with many returning for subsequent seasons. Qualitative, multi-sited research investigated the livelihood strategies of 50 Timorese worker households over a three-year period. Their net earnings averaged between 4000 and 8000 USD per season, varying with the type of employment, living costs and their ability to save. Remittances assist in strengthening livelihoods by consolidating financial, physical, social, natural and human capital, improving the quality of life for returning workers, their households and communities. Remittances maintain and consolidate social relationships, and enable investments in entrepreneurial activities, education and house building. Migrant workers exhibited a strong preference for developing social capital, with many investments in other livelihood assets underpinned by a desire to strengthen social relationships, reflecting beliefs that this enhances livelihood resilience. While remittances have made greater direct contributions to livelihoods than economic production within Timor-Leste, at least for participating households and their immediate networks, this expenditure on social capital also suggests the broader structural limitations of using remittances in a ‘productive’ way (through capital accumulation) within labour-sending countries.

Date: 2023
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
http://hdl.handle.net/10.1080/01436597.2022.2131519 (text/html)
Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:taf:ctwqxx:v:44:y:2023:i:1:p:96-114

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
http://www.tandfonline.com/pricing/journal/ctwq20

DOI: 10.1080/01436597.2022.2131519

Access Statistics for this article

Third World Quarterly is currently edited by Shahid Qadir

More articles in Third World Quarterly from Taylor & Francis Journals
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Chris Longhurst ().