Barriers to Health Care: the Relief Effect of Remittances in Tajikistan Sandra Pellet and Florence Jusot Abstract While the impact of remittances on consumption and investment is well studied, there are fewer studies exploring their influence on healthcare utilization. In a context of cost barriers to healthcare and heavy reliance on migration, it is legitimate to ask whether remittances alleviate the budget constraint and allow healthcare consumption in migrant- sending households. Here we investigate the effect of remittances on foregone care, access to care and expenditure using a two-part modeling, using data from the 2007 Tajikistan Living Standards Survey. Indeed, in Tajikistan, out-of-pocket expenditure increased substantially during the last two decades. In the meantime, labor migrations and the remittances increased, reaching 50% of GDP. At the same time, health needs may have been a factor in sending someone abroad to face tremendous out-of-pocket expenses, inducing endogeneity. Using the 2SLS procedure, we address this hypothesis. We find an income effect of currently abroad migrants' remittances on healthcare access. Sandra Pellet PSL Research University Université Paris-Dauphine, LEDa-LEGOS Place Maréchal de Lattre de Tassigny 75016 Paris (France) Contact:
[email protected] Florence Jusot PSL Research University Université Paris-Dauphine, LEDa-LEGOS Place Maréchal de Lattre de Tassigny 75016 Paris (France) Contact:
[email protected] Keywords: Migration, Remittances, Health care use, Unmet needs, Postsocialist Transition. JEL codes: D6; F2; I1; I3 1. Introduction Migrants’ transfers play a critical role in the economy of the country of origin. An indicator of their role is the significant contribution to GDP that remittances make in many developing countries.