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Remittances from migration have significant impacts on economic livelihoods indeveloping countries. Yet, to date, scholars have paid little attention to the broaderways in which migrant remittances enable rural households to improve their capacityto respond and adapt to economic as well as environmental challenges. This paperdraws upon social resilience as a conceptual tool to investigate how monetaryremittances are used by households to enhance their ability to respond to challenges,build economic, human and cultural capital, and plan for the future. Using data froma qualitative study of rural migrant households in Bangladesh, we provide an analysisof how different strategies for investing internal and international remittances contributeto household social resilience. Our analysis reveals that remittances in generalcontribute to improving the social resilience of migrant households. Remittances areimportant in building economic capital through accessing land for agricultural productionas well as housing construction. Remittances also enable households toaccess education, and thus build their human capital. Nevertheless, the paper revealsan important gender dimension in the choice of investment strategies. Female-headedhouseholds tend to invest remittances in human capital, and such strategies may contributeto the reinforcement of existing gender inequalities and do little to improveresilience
Sikder et al. (Wed,) studied this question.