ABSTRACT
Indonesian migrants transmit their remittance to the home country. Due to distance from families, they rely on mobile phones to maintain communicating distant-life. This study has three main objectives, namely, to find out the differences between male and female migrant worker's life, mobile phone use, and remittance arrangement via mobile phone with family members in the village. Indonesian government sends more female workers than male to destination countries, including Malaysia. As a qualitative research, at least seven migrant workers were interviewed, comprising four documented-female workers and three documented male workers who work in Penang, Malaysia. The informant selection uses the snowball sampling technique. Though they have a common ground on lack of knowledge of financial issues, there are similarities and differences of answers about the three above research objectives. We propose government and telecommunication companies provide policies and mobile phone based-money management programs for low-income migrants and their families.
KEYWORDS
Indonesian, migrant, workers, remittance, mobile phone