Migration and marital unions: a two-way relationship[Migration et mariage : une relation à double sens]

Reading the theoretical literature on international migration, an individual considering moving to a foreign destination was standing on a rock-solid basis, formed by his or her family. The family was involved in the decision and also in the financing of the lumpy investment into migration (e.g., Stark and Bloom, 1985). This, in turn, implied that an individual migration was matched by an implicit agreement between the migrant and the non-migrant family members that the income gains from this investment would have been shared through remittances (e.g., Poirine, 1997). The empirical literature has, then explored the implications of migration and remittances on the family members left behind (e.g., Gibson, McKenzie and Stillman, 2011; Clemens and Tiongson, 2017; Mobarak, Sharif and Shresta, 2023). The research that we conducted was motivated by a simple question: to what extent international migration fits with this image? And, in case it does not, as migrants change their marital status after having moved abroad, which are the implications for our understanding of the determinants of migration and of its effects on the left behind?