Thesis Defense Summary

Ⅰ.

In her dissertation, Ms. Simiyu examines the response of remittances to the 2007-2008 post-election violence in Kenya and the use of remittances on education expenditure. After discussing the role of remittance conceptually and reviewing literature in Chapters 1 and 2, in Chapter 3 Ms. Simiyu finds that remittance flows increased during and in the aftermath of post-election violence to households who were in hot conflict zones of Nakuru district in Kenya. The victimized households due to post-election violence received about 51.2 percent points more remittances relative to non-victims in the hot conflict zones, and remittances acted as insurance against overall loss of income during and in the aftermath of the violence mayhem. 
In addition, she also finds that mobile phone ownership at household level significantly increase remittance flows, but were more responsive to non-conflict affected households as opposed to conflict affected households. Remarkably, victimized household with mobile phones in hot conflict zones received significantly less remittances compared to victimized households without mobile-phones. Thus, these results suggest that, the mobile-money transfer systems were vulnerable to post-election violence. It is not clear, however, if the services were quickly restored after the political turmoil. 
In Chapter 4, she finds that the probability of enrolling into a secondary school reduces by 20.7 percent points for children in remittance receiving families. The absence of the migrant household member leave a gap in a family labor force or structure, and the remaining family members especially children have to fill the gap by joining labor market or provision of labor on farms or helping in family chores. The children therefore, drop out of school lowering education expenses in a household. Hence, low secondary school enrollment implies lower education expenses in a household and hence remittances are mainly expended on other household consumption needs especially payment of utility bills and transportation costs. 
The results from Chapter 3 suggest that remittances actually seem to act as insurance against disasters and crises including political unrest. To allow household obtain potential efficiency gains from remittances as a risk-pooling strategy, policies that encourage migrants living abroad unaccompanied by family members should be enacted. However, the results in Chapter 4 show that remittance receipts do not alleviate liquidity constraints faced by remittance receiving households. On the contrary, the missing family members disrupt family structures causing children to suffer and less likely to enroll in secondary school. Hence, from a policy perspective the results emphasizes the importance to support children especially those at the age of secondary school enrollment and in migrant households.