Measuring the Impact of the US Financial Crisis on Salvadoran Migrants and Family Remittances

Abstract

Between 1965 and 2010, the proportion of the world’s population living outside their countries of birth grew from 2.2 to 3.1 percent. Today these migrants number more than 200 million. Many of them send remittances to their countries of origin, which are an important but poorly understood financial flow compared to other international financial flows to developing countries, such as official development assistance and foreign direct investment. In 2009, migrant remittances to developing countries amounted to more than US$300 billion.¹