Abstract Eight 2009

GLOBAL

DEVELOPMENT STUDIES

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Volume Five Winter 2008-Spring 2009 Numbers 3-4.

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THEME: GLOBAL LABOR MIGRATION AND EMERGING TRENDS IN DEVELOPMENT FINANCING:

AN ASSESSMENT OF THE SOCIAL AND ECONOMIC IMPCT OF MIGRANT (WORKER) REMITTANCES

IN SUB-SAHARAN AFRICA

TRANSNATIONAL REMITTANCES AS IMPETUS FOR THE ATTAINMENT OF THE MILLENNIUM

DEVELOPMENT GOAL (1) IN NIGERIA: AN INVESTIGATIVE STUDY OF ILESHA

Adebusuyi Isaac Adeniran

Department of Sociology and Anthropology

Obafemi Awolowo University, Ile-Ife, Nigeria.

E-mail: adebusuyi@oauife.edu.ng

Published Online: March 15, 2017

ABSTRACT

The depletion of the manpower base and loss of trained/skilled labor could be advanced as parts of the undoing of contemporary labor migration trends, which tend to be at the detriment of the developing societies, such as Nigeria. However, recent developments have invalidated this assertion, at least within the Nigerian context, where the rate of unemployment is steadily rising due to limited socio-economic opportunities. Instead, emigration from Nigeria to industrialized societies has been serving dual beneficial purposes. It has been helping to reduce the rate of joblessness. Remittances have also been playing a positive role in poverty alleviation in Nigeria. It is believed that households that live above the poverty line in Nigeria usually have one or more of their members working in the developed world and remitting monies homeward. This article assesses the relevance and contribution of remittances to the realization of the Millennium Development Goal (MDG1’s) target of ‘halving extreme poverty’ by 2015. The Ilesha community in Southwest Nigeria is utilized as the study’s location. Specifically, the study employs a household-based survey method as its mode of investigation and utilizes both ‘social network’ and ‘social exchange’ perspectives as the theoretical foundation of the study.