Overseas Filipino workers and their impact on household poverty

This paper examines whether the outflow of Overseas Filipino Workers (OFWs) has resulted in poverty reduction, particularly for the migrants' families.

The paper finds evidence that it has a proportionally smaller but still significant part of new migrants are found to come from the lower income deciles; and families who are able to send a migrant abroad are able to climb up the per capita income ladder quite rapidly. On the other hand, half of OFWs are found to come from the richest quintile, indicating that returns to migration is also likely contributing to inequality.