The Effects of Cumulative Migration on Households’ Asset and Capital Accumulation in Rural Guatemala

Gabriela Sanchez-Soto, Brown University

Prior analyses have demonstrated the important role of international migration remittances in the purchase of household goods, housing, and investments in home improvement in less developed countries. Studies also indicate that the use of remittances for the acquisition of productive assets, such as agricultural land, is less prevalent and more closely tied to the local economic context. In this paper I examine the relationship between non-productive and productive asset ownership and migration experience, in the context of a sample of semi-urban and rural Guatemalan communities. I analyze whether asset ownership varies across the type of migration experience—international versus internal—and whether the relationship varies by ethnicity. I use data on migration and remittances collected by the Guatemala Migration Survey in 2000-2002. This analysis uses Ordinary Least Squares regression models to estimate the effects of internal and international migration experience on the accumulation of household assets and agricultural capital.