Remittances in crises: a haiti case study hpg background Papers Discussion papers

Chapter 2

The study

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An HPG background paper

HPG BACKGROUND PAPER

they received wages ranging from just below to slightly more than

USD 100 per month. Humanitarian agency workers earned

somewhat more, but given the high cost of living in Haiti, they

described themselves as barely scraping by. These groups

experienced similar losses and recounted sometimes

insurmountable difficulties in trying to recover. Whereas only a

minority of those in the focus groups said that they obtained

remittances from relatives outside of Haiti, a much larger number

of the middle-class respondents said that they received forms of

assistance from relatives outside of the country during and after

the hurricane. This is not surprising, since, as in most migrant

sending nations, the poorer segments of Haitian society lack

resources to finance migration in the first place, and those able to

migrate earn little.