MIGRATION-INDUCED STRESS, REMITTANCE RECEIPT, AND SUBJECTIVE WELL-BEING AMONG MIGRANT-SENDING FAMILIES: A PSYCHOMETRIC INVESTIGATION USING STRUCTURAL EQUATION MODELLING IN A PAKISTANI CONTEXT

Abstract

Labour remittances are a key component of remittances and Pakistan is one of the top seven countries for labour remittances, with 832,339 registered labour emigrants in 2022 and remittance receipts of USD 31.3 billion in fiscal year (FY) 2021-2022. To date, however, no psychometrically sound studies have tried to model the effects of migration-induced stress, remittance receipt, and subjective well-being (SWB) for Pakistani migrant-sending families at this scale, using structural equation modelling (SEM). This study fulfils this gap in literature by using a cross sectional quantitative design with N = 420, in the districts of Punjab and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa that are facing high emigration rates among the left behind households. Grounded in Lazarus and Folkman’s (1984) Transactional Stress and Coping Model, Diener’s (1984) Tripartite SWB Model, and the Remittance-Optimism Hypothesis (Ivlevs et al., 2019), the study deploys a two-phase SEM strategy: Phase 1 establishes measurement model validity through confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) with multi-group invariance testing across gender and province; Phase 2 tests the structural model with remittance amount and regularity as observed moderator variables. Ecological validity and district level migration exposure controls are set using secondary data from the BEOE outflow statistics (2019-2022) and SBP remittance flow data. Results indicate that migration induced stress has a significant direct negative effect on SWB (β = −0.43, p < .001) and a significant indirect positive effect on SWB through the receipt of remittances (β = 0.27, p < .01), thus confirming the partial mediation model. The relationship between stress and SWB is significantly moderated by remittance regularity (interaction β = 0.19, p < .05). The CFA result indicated that the three factors of the measurement model (migration stress, remittance adequacy, SWB) was confirmed with acceptable fit (CFI = .94, RMSEA = .058, SRMR = .062). There is multi-group invariance for gender and province. The study offers a psychometric instrument battery for cross-cultural research on migration mental health in Islamic South Asian contexts, which is culturally valid, and provides policy recommendations for support programmes for left-behind households.