Using propensity score matching with the 2009 Cambodia SocioEconomic
Survey of households, the study examines the effects of
emigration and remittances on a number of households’ wellbeing
indicators: poverty, labour participation of non-migrant
members and paddy productivity. The theoretical framework of
the paper is built upon a “new economics of labour migration”
hypothesising that the emigration decision is jointly determined by
households and individual migrants and that remittances are
contractual arrangements between them. The results indicate that
households with at least one migrant member (with or without
receiving remittances) could reduce their headcount poverty rate
by 2-4 percent vis-à-vis their matched controls. However,
emigration and remittances do not help the poorest of the poor,
for it is not necessary that poor households send migrant members.
On the contrary, emigration (remittances) generates a
“dependency effect” due to reduced weekly hours worked of 6.0
percent by adult working age who are employed and decreased
salary earning. The study finds mixed evidence of the impact on
paddy productivity of migrant-sending households. There is also
inconclusive evidence of investment effects of remittances on
inputs (fertilizer, energy and manpower).