Flows of money move the world in a kind of transfer from rich to poor countries. In 2022, the last full year for which records exist, remittances from migrants to their countries of origin amounted to $647 billion (€566 billion), according to the World Bank, which in June last year estimated $656 billion for 2023. That's right, according to analyzes by international organizations, the pandemic will not stop during the pandemic and will not stop in the next few years. From China, Mexico and Venezuela come these four stories about resignation, work, precarity, perseverance and great solidarity.
Zuleika Garcia, at her home in Caracas, on December 8th. Gaby Oraa
“The money let me down for a long time”
Zuleika García's daughter sends her family in Venezuela $100 worth of medicine, hygiene and cleaning products every month
The Venezuelan Zuleika García, 72 years old, already retired after a professional life focused on education, lives with her husband – also retired after five decades of work – in a middle-class apartment in Caracas. “I have taught in preschool and primary schools and also worked in higher education in several public and private technical vocational institutes. “The money helped me for a long time,” he says. That was no longer the case a few years ago, around 2013, long before her daughter decided to leave Venezuela for Spain.
“Things were going well here…” She was an art professor at the Catholic University and the Central University for a long time, but the economic and social situation deteriorated too much and she finally left. It was the year 2020. Since then, the 175 bolívars (8 US dollars) of his pension for three decades of service, the 130 bolívars of social security and some smaller grants have been supplemented by around 100 dollars, medicine, hygiene products and cleaning products – “They are expensive here “ – that their daughter sends them monthly. “Depending on your needs, it can be more or less,” he adds. But it is by far their first source of income.
Zhou Tiantian, who grew up in the Chinese city of Henan, now lives in Singapore. Photo submitted by Zhou Tia
“We leave so we can improve”
Zhou Tiantian, 30, grew up thanks to the money his father Zhou Jun sent from Spain to his family in Henan, central China.
Tiantian's parents were state-owned company officials until, like many of their compatriots, they lost their jobs during the 1998 and 2004 rounds of austerity under new economic reform policies. Mr. Zhou immigrated to Alicante in 2004, where he worked as a chef in several Asian restaurants while his unemployed wife and then 11-year-old daughter remained in their hometown of Zhengzhou. In the more than 15 years he lived in the Valencian city, he met other compatriots like Ma and Qin who also helped their spouses and children survive in Henan.
Tiantian, who has been living in Singapore since this summer, reiterates that adults of his generation are emigrating “to improve their careers” because the Chinese population in general is no longer as reliant on remittances as it was at the end of the 20th century. According to the World Bank, remittances accounted for more than 0.3% of the country's GDP in 2004, a figure that has stabilized at around 0.1% over the past five years. In 2023, the Asian giant is expected to receive 50 billion dollars in this way, 1,000 less than a year earlier. Jun, who has been back in China since before the pandemic, is enjoying his retirement with his wife, while Tiantian is focusing on “moving forward personally and professionally.” However, her husband “often” sends his parents some of the money he “saved in yuan” while working in Beijing; His parents, farmers in the eastern province of Shandong, do not receive a pension.
Diana García, at her kiosk in Caracas, Venezuela, on December 29, 2023.GABY ORAA
“Silver lasts much less”
For Diana García, who suffers from epilepsy, the income from the kiosk she runs is not enough: “If I need something urgently, I ask my children,” she says.
49-year-old Diana García and her husband have been running a kiosk since 2012, after she left her job as a high school teacher. However, in the last four years, the deterioration of the Venezuelan economic situation forced him to ask his children, who had emigrated to Spain, for help “to complete the household.” The aid was fixed for a certain period of time – “100 or 200 dollars a month” -; Now, however, it depends on the needs: “They send me when I need something, when I ask them for something urgent.”
García's children are still in the process of obtaining papers in Spain, limiting their income and their ability to send money to their parents. “Most often they send me medication because I suffer from epilepsy. The drug I use here is rarely available.” Sometimes the help is for specific problems: “I'm fixing the bathroom at home and I'm asking them for help making the payment.”
However, their main source of income remains the facility they operate. “We equipped it. We were fine in the beginning, but we had ups and downs,” he says. However, in the last five years the situation has worsened: “This year [2023] It was difficult: we became poorer. I used to be able to save money with what I sold here, but now I don't earn enough. Sales have declined and we have had to sharply reduce profit margins to achieve competitive prices.” People, he says, have stopped buying; just the basics. And the money that comes from Spain no longer goes as far as it used to: “I solved problems with what my daughter sent me: $100 a month was enough, I have food for the house, for the dog, certain delicacies bought.” . What she's sending me now helps me, but the money lasts a lot less.” It's the best street-level definition of inflation.
Ramona Luna Mendoza, in a picture provided by herself.
“I sent money every week so they could eat what we couldn’t”
The Luna Mendoza sisters left Puebla, Mexico, 30 years ago to try their luck in the United States. A journey that allowed them to support their parents and children.
For the three Luna Mendoza sisters, migration was a way to make a living. Both have an agricultural background and grew up among corn cobs, bean fields, radishes and pumpkins in Santa Inés Ahuatempan (Puebla). As he grew up, money and food became scarce. Without the opportunity to study or work in this city of fewer than 6,500 residents, they decided to enter the United States illegally in the late 1980s. The first to emigrate was the eldest, Cira Dominga. Then it was Rafaela's turn. And in 1993, Ramona met her sisters in California. She was 26 years old and left her two small children in the care of her parents: “It's painful for someone who leaves to move forward.” It's not about leaving the family, but about giving the children and parents more stability to leave behind,” he says today.
For more than a decade, Ramona and her sisters cleaned luxury homes in Los Angeles. They earned between $55 and $65 a day. Of course with the constant uncertainty of being deported. Ramona only thought about sending money to her people: “Every week I sent them $150 to $200 so they could eat what we couldn't eat; so that they have a toy that we never had.” After 13 years of separation from her children, Ramona decided to return to her roots in 2007. She was the only one to return because her other two sisters had settled in the United States. Her priority was to return to her children, now teenagers, regain their affection and try to make up for the time she had not spent there with them. It wasn't easy, he admits, but he made it through patience: “It takes a lot of work, because there were 13 years in which you switched off and in which you acted like a machine: work, work and send the money. “”
Today, at the age of 56, he dedicates his days to caring for his almost 90-year-old parents; take care of the harvest; and managing the money that her sisters continue to send on time to pay those who help Ramona in the field and to cover her parents' expenses. “They help a lot,” he says. In Santa Inés Ahuatempan, remittances remain an essential part of the economy: This year alone, the city received nearly $500,000, according to the Bank of Mexico.
Follow all information Business And Business on Facebook and Xor in our weekly newsletter
The five-day agenda
The most important business quotes of the day, with the keys and context to understand their significance.
RECEIVE IT IN YOUR EMAIL
Subscribe to continue reading
Read without limits
_