Returning broke and broken? Return migration, reintegration and transnational social protection in the Philippines

Abstract

ABSTRACT Most overseas Filipino workers (OFWs) return home broke despite years of earning more than what they can in the Philippines. This poor saving behaviour among Filipino migrant workers has been attributed to their unwillingness to save. This paper attempts to better understand this behaviour using the theory of transnationalism by exploring how migrant workers prepare for their eventual return and how these strategies affect the family left behind. With return migration viewed from a transnationalist perspective, the poor saving behaviour can be attributed to the continuous process of renegotiation of space for return being experienced by OFWs. Using qualitative information derived from interviews with current Filipina household service workers (HSW), the paper finds that Filipina migrant workers tend to use their income for social reintegration rather financial preparation. Instead of saving for their own retirement, they use their earnings to carve out the space for their return within their families through transnational practices such as sending remittances and regular visits. The reintegration policies treat migrant workers as economically active, entrepreneurial returnee that goes against this imagination of return, thus, only moderately successful in providing social protection for return migrants.