Who gets the most remittances?

A new Gallup poll looks at which countries have the most citizens who depend on remittances from migrant workers living abroad. The Philippines may be famous for its remittance-based economy, but it’s actually the semiautonomous region of Somaliland that leads the world, with 40 percent of its households receiving remittances from abroad. Overall, the list ...

By , a former associate editor at Foreign Policy.
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A new Gallup poll looks at which countries have the most citizens who depend on remittances from migrant workers living abroad. The Philippines may be famous for its remittance-based economy, but it's actually the semiautonomous region of Somaliland that leads the world, with 40 percent of its households receiving remittances from abroad. Overall, the list of countries with over 20 percent receiving remittances is a pretty eclectic group:

A new Gallup poll looks at which countries have the most citizens who depend on remittances from migrant workers living abroad. The Philippines may be famous for its remittance-based economy, but it’s actually the semiautonomous region of Somaliland that leads the world, with 40 percent of its households receiving remittances from abroad. Overall, the list of countries with over 20 percent receiving remittances is a pretty eclectic group:

It’s also worth noting that these numbers don’t seem to track that closely with the countries that have the most emigrants. The top 5 by total population (Mexico, India, Russia, China, Ukraine) and by percentage (the Palestinian territories, Samoa, Grenada, St. Kitts, and Guyana) are nowhere on this list. Only Albania and the Philippines seem to have very high numbers of their population living abroad and very high percentages of those back home receiving remittances. People seem to be a somewhat specialized export.

Hat tip: Erica Marat

Joshua Keating was an associate editor at Foreign Policy. Twitter: @joshuakeating

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