Outsourcing Welfare

In order to meet the International Monetary Fund's debt-reduction guidelines, many developing country governments have had to retrenth their social welfare systems. This book is about how remittances-the hundreds of billions of dollars international migrants send to family members in their home countries each year-are helping to fill this welfare gap and prevent civil unrest in developing countries. Looking particularly at Mexico, with supplemental cases in Africa,
the Middle East, the Caribbean, and Latin America, the author argues that counting on expatriates to send money home has become a de facto social welfare policy in many cash-strapped developing countries whose economic policies are guided by neoliberal orthodoxy.