Resources: Social and financial capital

The collected data show that up to 43% of the interviewees thought their financial situation before migrating to be “average”, or “bad”, and even “very bad” for 36% of them (Tab. C1). Migrants from Algeria (Tab. C1.1) and Tunisia (Tab. C1.3) considered their financial situation before migration to be negative, respectively 44.6% and 37.5%. Once abroad, the financial situation seems to improve significantly for over 81% of all the interviewees (Tab. C3).

The upgrading of the financial situation is closely related to the high rate (70%) of migrants having carried out remittances to their origin country (Tab. C4). Nearly 30% of them remitted part of their income on a monthly basis, 25% on a quarterly basis and 27% irregularly (Tab. C4). Over 30% of the migrants declared having remitted over 1,000 Euros per year (Tab. C5), in order to meet the following priorities (Tab. C6):

• providing for the needs of the family living in the homeland;
• paying for the building or the purchasing of a house;
• ensuring children’s schooling and education.

In-kind transfers seem to be less frequent than remittances, and yet they concern 70% of the sample (Tab. C7).

Almost 32% of the interviewees declared they achieved some investment projects, at the time of their return (Tab. C8), in sectors such as agriculture, manufacturing industry, trading and building (Tab. C8.1). This tendency shows to be more significant for migrants who decided to return on their own initiative. Most migrants who undertook some investments achieved their projects thanks to self-financing (Tab. C9). Only 4.6% of them benefited from institutional assistance (Tab. C10). In fact, the importance of family and relational (friends) support must be stressed as regards the achievement of the investments carried out by the returnees (Tab. C11).

Regarding returnees who did not carry out any investment in their origin country (over 65% of the total sample and over 75% of the migrants who were forced to return, Tab. C8), the reasons expressed were the inadequacy of financial capital, followed by the lack of experience and the administrative and institutional constraints (Tab. C13). In fact, according to all the interviewees, facilitating the administrative procedures is one of the prior prerequisites to encouraging returnees to invest in their origin country (Tab. C12).

As already stressed, family support is a critical factor in achieving investments. This support is equally important for one out of every two interviewees wishing to migrate (Tab. C14). Contacts with the family residing in the homeland are frequent. Besides yearly visits to the origin country (Tab. C17 & Tab. C18), one migrant out of every two declared having had contacts with his/her family at least once a week during his/her migration experience abroad (Tab. C16).