The Dominican Republic has historically been a country of destination for migrants, but over time has shifted to become a net emigration country. In recent years, the country’s economic growth has been one of the strongest in the region, driving improvements in a number of key development indicators. Despite this, people continue to leave the Dominican Republic; today an estimated 1.3 million Dominicans live overseas – 12% of the population. The earnings they send home contributed 8% to the national income in 2015 – a sum of over USD 5.2 billion. The country also continues to attract immigrants, who now constitute 4% of the population.

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International migration – both emigration and immigration – are a significant feature in the Dominican Republic, offering substantial potential for development. Although its role is increasingly being acknowledged in national development planning, migration’s development potential is not fully reflected in the policy framework. The Interrelations between Public Policies, Migration and Development (IPPMD) project – managed by the OECD Development Centre and co-financed by the European Union – was conceived to enable the Dominican Republic to maximise this potential. It explores:

The Dominican Republic is missing opportunities to harness the development potential embodied in its high rates of both emigration and immigration. The Interrelations between Public Policies, Migration and Development (IPPMD) project was conducted in the Dominican Republic between 2013 and 2017 to explore, through both quantitative and qualitative analysis, the two-way relationship between migration and public policies in five key sectors: the labour market, agriculture, education, investment and financial services, and social protection and health. This chapter provides an overview of the project’s findings for the Dominican Republic, highlighting the potential for migration in many of its dimensions (emigration, immigration, remittances and return migration) to boost development, and analysing the sectoral policies that will allow this to happen.

The Dominican Republic is a country of both emigration and immigration. An estimated 12% of its population currently resides abroad, while immigrants constitute about 4% of the population. The country benefits from a large volume of remittances, representing around 7% of its gross domestic product and easily exceeding foreign direct investment. This chapter paints a broad picture of the Dominican Republic’s migration landscape, drawing from the literature, censuses and surveys. It gives a brief overview of the country’s history of migration and current trends: its drivers and impacts, who the immigrants and emigrants are and where they have gone, how they remit and the impacts on their household and country. Finally, it lays out the legal, policy and institutional framework relevant to migration.

In order to provide an empirical foundation to the analysis of the links between migration and policy, the Interrelations between Public Policies, Migration and Development (IPPMD) project used three evidence-gathering tools: household surveys, community surveys, and interviews with representatives of public, private, non-government and international institutions to provide additional qualitative information about the migration context in the Dominican Republic. This chapter explains how the sampling framework was designed and implemented, as well as the statistical approaches used in this report to analyse the link between key policy sectors and emigration, immigration, return migration and remittances. The chapter also includes descriptive statistics drawn from the survey data. It outlines some key characteristics of the migrants in the sample as well as some background on immigration, emigration, remittances and return migration.

Migration – both emigration and immigration – is a significant feature of the Dominican Republic. Yet the links among the various dimensions of migration and development are not very well understood. This chapter uses the data from the IPPMD surveys to untangle some of the complex links between emigration, remittances, return migration and immigration and five key development sectors: the labour market, agriculture, education, investment and financial services, and social protection and health. The significant immigration flows into the country represent an analytical opportunity to better understand the dynamics of immigration and its links to job availability and use of government services and resources. The chapter concludes by assessing the extent to which the full development potential of migration and remittances is being realised in the Dominican Republic.

Sectoral policies in key areas for development, such as the labour market, agriculture, education, financial services and investment and social protection and health can affect migration decisions, and enhance – or decrease – the positive impacts of migration on development. The IPPMD household and community surveys incorporated a wide set of policy programmes in five key sectors to identify some clear links between sectoral policies and migration. This chapter reports on analysis of the ways in which policy programmes in these sectors in the Dominican Republic influence people’s decision to emigrate, immigrate and to send remittances.