Using Remittance Transaction Data for Timely Estimation of the Foreign Worker Population in Malaysia

Malaysia has been grappling with understanding how many foreign workers reside in the country and thus faces challenges in formulating evidence-based foreign worker policies. This paper investigates how to use micro-level remittance transaction dat...

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Main Authors:	Ahmad, Zainab Ali, Simler, Kenneth, Yi, Soonhwa
Format:	Report
Language:	English
Published:	World Bank, Washington, DC 2020
Subjects:	REMITTANCES FOREIGN WORKERS MIGRANT LABOR MONEY TRANSFER MECHANISM LABOR FORCE LABOR POLICY SOCIAL PROTECTION
Online Access:	http://documents.worldbank.org/curated/en/726721591929703728/Using-Remittance-Transaction-Data-for-Timely-Estimation-of-the-Foreign-Worker-Population-in-Malaysia http://hdl.handle.net/10986/33913

id	okr-10986-33913
recordtype	oai_dc
spelling	okr-10986-339132021-05-25T09:55:19Z Using Remittance Transaction Data for Timely Estimation of the Foreign Worker Population in Malaysia Ahmad, Zainab Ali Simler, Kenneth Yi, Soonhwa REMITTANCES FOREIGN WORKERS MIGRANT LABOR MONEY TRANSFER MECHANISM LABOR FORCE LABOR POLICY SOCIAL PROTECTION Malaysia has been grappling with understanding how many foreign workers reside in the country and thus faces challenges in formulating evidence-based foreign worker policies. This paper investigates how to use micro-level remittance transaction data collected from money transfer service providers to estimate the number of foreign workers. Most foreign workers remit a large portion of their earnings to support family members back home. They are low-income earners, are sensitive to remittance costs, and thus opt for money transfer service providers to remit money rather than regular banks, where transfer services are more expensive. Therefore, the remittance data provide a useful source to conduct the investigation. Existing estimates range from two to five million foreign workers; our results narrow that range considerably, estimating a total of 2.99 million to 3.16 million foreign workers in Malaysia as of 2017–18. State and nationality distributions of foreign workers in our estimates are consistent with the Ministry of Home Affairs data, lending support to the validity of our estimates. Nevertheless, authors note that the Bank Negara Malaysia remittance data could potentially underestimate the number of workers in states with low access to money service providers, as well as nationalities that have access to alternative money transfer mechanisms such as commercial banking and informal transfer channels. 2020-06-15T16:55:55Z 2020-06-15T16:55:55Z 2020-06-06 Report http://documents.worldbank.org/curated/en/726721591929703728/Using-Remittance-Transaction-Data-for-Timely-Estimation-of-the-Foreign-Worker-Population-in-Malaysia http://hdl.handle.net/10986/33913 English CC BY 3.0 IGO http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/igo World Bank World Bank, Washington, DC Economic & Sector Work Economic & Sector Work :: Other Poverty Study East Asia and Pacific Malaysia
repository_type	Digital Repository
institution_category	Foreign Institution
institution	Digital Repositories
building	World Bank Open Knowledge Repository
collection	World Bank
language	English
topic	REMITTANCES FOREIGN WORKERS MIGRANT LABOR MONEY TRANSFER MECHANISM LABOR FORCE LABOR POLICY SOCIAL PROTECTION
spellingShingle	REMITTANCES FOREIGN WORKERS MIGRANT LABOR MONEY TRANSFER MECHANISM LABOR FORCE LABOR POLICY SOCIAL PROTECTION Ahmad, Zainab Ali Simler, Kenneth Yi, Soonhwa Using Remittance Transaction Data for Timely Estimation of the Foreign Worker Population in Malaysia
geographic_facet	East Asia and Pacific Malaysia
description	Malaysia has been grappling with understanding how many foreign workers reside in the country and thus faces challenges in formulating evidence-based foreign worker policies. This paper investigates how to use micro-level remittance transaction data collected from money transfer service providers to estimate the number of foreign workers. Most foreign workers remit a large portion of their earnings to support family members back home. They are low-income earners, are sensitive to remittance costs, and thus opt for money transfer service providers to remit money rather than regular banks, where transfer services are more expensive. Therefore, the remittance data provide a useful source to conduct the investigation. Existing estimates range from two to five million foreign workers; our results narrow that range considerably, estimating a total of 2.99 million to 3.16 million foreign workers in Malaysia as of 2017–18. State and nationality distributions of foreign workers in our estimates are consistent with the Ministry of Home Affairs data, lending support to the validity of our estimates. Nevertheless, authors note that the Bank Negara Malaysia remittance data could potentially underestimate the number of workers in states with low access to money service providers, as well as nationalities that have access to alternative money transfer mechanisms such as commercial banking and informal transfer channels.
format	Report
author	Ahmad, Zainab Ali Simler, Kenneth Yi, Soonhwa
author_facet	Ahmad, Zainab Ali Simler, Kenneth Yi, Soonhwa
author_sort	Ahmad, Zainab Ali
title	Using Remittance Transaction Data for Timely Estimation of the Foreign Worker Population in Malaysia
title_short	Using Remittance Transaction Data for Timely Estimation of the Foreign Worker Population in Malaysia
title_full	Using Remittance Transaction Data for Timely Estimation of the Foreign Worker Population in Malaysia
title_fullStr	Using Remittance Transaction Data for Timely Estimation of the Foreign Worker Population in Malaysia
title_full_unstemmed	Using Remittance Transaction Data for Timely Estimation of the Foreign Worker Population in Malaysia
title_sort	using remittance transaction data for timely estimation of the foreign worker population in malaysia
publisher	World Bank, Washington, DC
publishDate	2020
url	http://documents.worldbank.org/curated/en/726721591929703728/Using-Remittance-Transaction-Data-for-Timely-Estimation-of-the-Foreign-Worker-Population-in-Malaysia http://hdl.handle.net/10986/33913
_version_	1764479785102213120

Using Remittance Transaction Data for Timely Estimation of the Foreign Worker Population in Malaysia

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