Remittances, education and return migration. Evidence for immigrants in Spain

We analyse the relationship between intentions to return, remittances and human capital for immigrants in Spain. With this aim, microdata from the 2007 Encuesta Nacional de Inmigrantes – provided by the Spanish Institute of Statistics – are used to analyse whether more educated migrants are more or less likely to remit (the extensive margin) and, if they do remit, whether they send more or fewer remittances than less educated migrants (the intensive margin). A negative association is found between education and remittances at the extensive margin, and a strong positive relationship at the intensive margin. However, the evidence is mixed once we take into account their different origins and their intentions to return. Our results show a different behaviour of immigrants depending on their region of origin that could be related to cultural and institutional differences, which will be explored in further research.