This project involves the dissertation research of an anthropology student from the University of Florida. The hypothesis to be tested is that male labor emigration from the Caribbean Island of Haiti leads to increased female fertility in the home communities, because the remittances available from males are important to poor women in raising their children. Preliminary studies have shown this relationship in extensive survey data. The student will study in two villages of Haiti, one in which there are many absent men working elsewhere and another with relatively few absent men. Extensive surveys of individuals in households in the villages will provide economic, reproductive, nutritional and social data to test the hypothesis. This research is important because the Caribbean has long been a reservoir of migrant labor for the countries of the Americas. Haiti in particular has been the poorest country of the region, and has evidenced a pattern of male out migration for some time. The contribution of this case study will be to provide the fine-grained information about human behavior in context that ethnography excels in. Improved understanding of the impact of migrant laborer remittances on the reproductive success of the women left behind will be valuable for development planners attempting to design programs to raise the living conditions of the Haitian people.
