According to the 2005 Census, for rural households, sending a member outside of the community will increase the likelihood of an additional, substantive, income stream. This is particularly important since because landholdings are small and the productivity of agriculture is limited. Typically, households send men to source non-agricultural work elsewhere while the women, young, and older family members stay in the field and maximise agricultural yields. Thus, migration gives rural households the opportunity to obtain monetary income from remittances at the same time as income from agricultural production. From the 2006 data collected on remittances by the CFSVA [4], it is seen that households in Saravane reported the highest incidence of support (20% of households), followed by Vientiane (18%), Champasack (17%) and Savannakhet (15%). Five provinces reported less than 5% of households with remittances last year: Phongsaly, Oudomxay, Khammuane, Sekong and Attapeu. While only 3% reported receiving remittances in 2006, it is likely that remittances were under reported and that social networks play a more important role than is suggested by the CFSVA[4]. The ADB PPA (2001) showed that these forms of cooperation are very important in rural communities[8]. Migration is thus taking on increasing relevance as a source of income.
According to LECS 3 data [5], only 3% of all households received cash remittances or cash gifts from abroad. Some groups, however, are more likely to receive remittances than others. The population group which benefits most from overseas funds are the Hmongs, with about 9% of receiving such flows. A large numbers of Hmong live abroad in countries such as Australia, New Zealand, Canada and the United States, where they resettled following the U.S.-Vietnam war.