Remittance refers to money that migrants or children of migrants send back to family members in their country of origin. These payments are typically used for essentials such as food, education, medical care, or household survival, and they form a major source of income for many families across Africa, South Asia, Eastern Europe, and the Caribbean. A remittance is more than money. It is a promise. A responsibility.

A silent thread connecting someone living in Britain to a family waiting on the other side of the world. Every bank transfer carries more than pounds, it carries guilt, duty, expectation, and love. And for many young men in the UK today, remittances have become the emotional weight they never asked to carry. Through services like Western Union, MoneyGram, WorldRemit, Remitly, and bank transfers. For many young men in Britain from Ugandan, Pakistani, Bangladeshi, Caribbean, Eastern European and other immigrant backgrounds, these transfers aren’t optional, they’re expected. Every month becomes a quiet balancing act of supporting family overseas while trying to build a life here. Behind the numbers are real pressures, real guilt, and real emotional weight.

In 2023, people living in Britain sent £9.3 billion abroad in remittances. What is less visible is who sends that money. Studies show that men—especially men aged 18–35—carry most of the remittance burden, often sending £120–£150 per transfer, usually once or twice a month, even while navigating minimum-wage jobs, university, or early careers. For a young man on minimum wage, that’s the equivalent of nearly one full week of take-home pay. Around 40% of UK-based remitters are aged 20–39. Studies show men are up to 70% more likely to be the primary remittance sender in households. This means young men in Britain disproportionately carry the financial duty of supporting family overseas. Many are early-career, low-income, or still studying — yet still sending money home. 67% of remitters send money monthly. 1 in 5 send money whenever there is a family emergency, creating unpredictable financial strain. 2023–2024 data shows UK living costs (rent, energy, food) have risen over 25%, but remittance expectations in diaspora families have not decreased. This creates a squeeze where young men feel punished from both ends.

Research shows that young men from Ugandan, Pakistani, Bangladeshi, Nigerian, Caribbean, and Eastern European backgrounds are up to 70% more likely to be the primary remitters in their families, 58% of men aged 18–35 said they feel “pressure” or “obligation” to send money. 42% said they feel “guilt” if they do not send money home. For many, this pressure begins in adolescence and becomes a silent load that shapes their identity, finances, and mental health. 1 in 3 British-born 2nd-generation young adults report feeling responsible for family survival back home, even if they have never lived in that country. Sending money abroad from the UK costs an average of 6% per transfer. For young men who send multiple payments per month, they lose £200–£400 per year just in fees.

They tell him he must send money. It is not always said as a command so much as an expectation stitched into family stories, seasonal rituals and the obligations of kinship. When his grandmother’s roof leaks, his uncle’s clinic runs short of supplies, a cousin’s fees must be paid, the message arrives by WhatsApp: if you can. For many young men born or raised in Britain to immigrant parents, men between 18 and 35 — that if you can becomes a repeated obligation, a tug at the heart and the wallet. The pressure to remit is economic, yes, but it is also moral, social and psychological. It shapes choices about work, study, relationships and mental health in ways that rarely make headlines.

Remittances are huge in the global economy and visible in aggregate numbers, but their human cost is quieter. In 2023, remittances sent from the UK amounted to roughly £9.3 billion, a major flow of private aid and family support across borders. That sum looks straightforward on a spreadsheet; for the men who send it, the arithmetic is lived and messy: choice versus duty, short-term help versus long-term saving, pride versus secrecy. Migration Observatory

A global lifeline, a local strain

Globally, remittances are one of the largest sources of private cross-border finance, dwarfing many forms of official aid. The World Bank estimated remittance flows in recent years at levels comparable to the GDP of mid-sized economies, a reminder that billions of small, private transfers add up to real economic weight. For diasporic families, these transfers are a lifeline: they pay tuition, buffer health shocks, fund funerals and stabilise households after bad harvests or a factory closure. Yet the same flows can be burdensome for the senders, especially when the expectations attached to money are relentless. World Bank

A crucial finding from qualitative research in the UK is that remitting can intensify under stress. When crises hit like economic downturns, pandemic shocks, currency depreciation in the home country, families back home look to their diaspora. This creates what researchers call “remitting through crisis”: while some migrants stop sending because of their own losses, many continue to remit more frequently or feel increased moral pressure to do so, even when their own economic footing is fragile. For young men trying to establish careers or finish university, the tension between investing in a future in Britain and supporting an immediate crisis back home is acute. OUP Academic

The gendered shape of obligation

Remittance dynamics are gendered. Studies show men often remit larger sums, and cultural expectations frequently position men as providers for extended family, not just for their immediate household. For a British-born or raised man of Ugandan, Pakistani, Bangladeshi or Lithuanian heritage, the expectation to be a financial anchor sits alongside other expectations of masculinity: to be dependable, to provide, to honour the family name. This double bind of be successful here, and be responsible there, produces stressors particular to men of this generation.

These pressures intersect with life stage. Men aged 18–25 are often students, apprentices or first-job workers; incomes are low and precarious. Men aged 26–35 are starting families, paying rents or mortgages, and trying to save. For both groups, sending even modest sums can force trade-offs: missing a bill in Britain to pay for a relative’s medication in Kampala; delaying a deposit to buy a first home because relatives need school fees in Dhaka. The result is a chronic kind of financial stress that sits alongside the emotional labour of being the family’s point person for both problems and hopes.

Mental health costs: data and evidence

The idea that remittances are purely altruistic is complicated by research linking remitting behaviour with mental health outcomes. Epidemiological and demographic studies have found associations between higher remittance burdens and increased risk of depressive symptoms among migrants. One influential study posited that whilst remitting can create a sense of mattering and purpose, the chronic strain of financial obligations may outweigh positive psychological effects for some senders, particularly those with lower incomes or precarious immigration status. For men who remit large sums or face frequent demands, the risk of stress, anxiety and depression rises. demographic-research.org

Studies show sending remittances is associated with:

• Higher stress
• Anxiety symptoms
• Sleep problems
• Lower wellbeing
  Among the senders — especially those under financial strain.
  Source: Journal of Migration & Health, 2020.

There is growing evidence that the strain of regular, sometimes unsustainable remitting, correlates with worse mental health outcomes in senders. Even when remittances bring dignity, purpose, and parent-pride, they also bring financial stress, anxiety, guilt, shame, and emotional exhaustion, especially when the sender is young, low-paid, or supporting multiple people.

In my counselling room, these feelings often manifest as:

• anxiety attacks at pay-day
• guilt about not saving for the future
• fear of being “found out” by peers
• resentment toward family obligations
• shame when unable to help
• isolation, as young men feel they must carry burdens alone

This silent pressure is a mental health issue. Not an exotic one, but common, widespread, and rarely addressed. In case studies of diasporic communities, researchers have documented the social dynamics that intensify stress: reputation management, family competition for scarce resources, and the stigma attached to stopping remittances. In the UK context, scholars have shown that remittance obligations are not neutral financial acts but moral performances, a son’s transfer might signal family loyalty and social standing, while refusal or inability to send can be read as betrayal. These moral economies of obligation produce shame, secrecy and sometimes bargaining, all of which add psychological weight to everyday life. Queen Mary University of London

The cost-of-living squeeze and squeezed loyalties

The last few years added another painful layer. With inflation and a rising cost of living in the UK, diaspora senders faced a widening squeeze. Journalistic investigations documented households in Britain that were “pulled from both sides”: keeping food on their own table while transferring money to parents, or cutting personal spending to maintain a flow of support. These trade-offs have psychological consequences of guilt, resentment, exhaustion that are rarely captured in policy debates. The Guardian

Young men face a reputational and relational calculus: maintain the remittances and risk falling behind locally, or reduce support and risk family conflict and stigma. For men trying to build careers, start families or simply catch up with peers, the sense of falling behind can be corrosive. Social comparisons, watching fellow Brits buy homes while you send monthly transfers back to Lahore, can intensify shame and isolation.

Cultural meaning: what money signals

Money in these contexts is a language. It signals care, status, and responsibility; it is how obligations are performed across distance. Remittances can be framed as an intergenerational contract: parents invest in migration and education with the expectation that children’s earnings abroad will sustain the family. For first-generation migrants, this contract may be explicit. For second-generation men born in Britain, the contract is often implicit but no less powerful. They inherit not only memories of scarcity but also the social script: when you have, you must give.

This script is complicated by new communications technologies. WhatsApp groups, instant photos of family illness, voice notes asking for help, the immediacy of digital life collapses distance and increases the frequency of requests. Each ping can feel like a summons to act, an emotional cue intertwined with financial demand. Young men report feeling unable to decline: refusal risks accusations of being selfish or ungrateful.

Policy, finance and transaction costs

There is also a material dimension. Sending money is not costless. Remitting is expensive. According to recent data, the average cost of sending money abroad from the UK remains around 6%, meaning a £120 transfer can cost ~£7.30 in fees. For men on low wages, multiple transfers, or frequent emergencies, those costs pile up. Combined with rising cost of living in the UK, rent, bills, food, men often find themselves choosing between their British responsibilities and their remittance obligations.

It becomes a painful balancing act: paying council tax or paying for a relative’s operation. While fintech has reduced costs in many corridors, for some routes and receivers the expenses remain significant. This means that even modest obligations become more expensive, and the effort of remitting multiplies stress. (For example, sending small sums to South Asia or Bangladesh via some operators can still carry non-trivial fees and rates.) The economics of remitting therefore matter in any honest account of burden. remittanceprices.worldbank.org+1

What this means for therapy, community and policy

The lived experience of these men is not only a financial problem; it is a psychological and social one. Therapists, counsellors and community workers need to recognise remittance obligations as a core domain of stress for second-generation men. Several practical implications follow:

1. Normalise the moral dilemma in counselling. Men often think there is something “wrong” with them for resenting help they give. Therapists can name the ambivalence, pride and anger, duty and exhaustion, and frame it as entirely human.

2. Financial literacy and boundary work. Practical budgeting advice that factors in remittances, plus role-play about refusing requests gently, can be part of therapy or community work. Men need scripts and small tools to manage family negotiations.

3. Community spaces for conversation. Places where men can speak about obligations without shame, male support groups, faith institutions, diaspora organisations, reduce secrecy and collective isolation.

4. Policy safeguards and better transfer infrastructure. Lowering fees, improving access to affordable transfer channels, and policies that protect low-income migrants from exploitative collection practices will help. But economic policy cannot substitute for cultural understanding.

5. Research and outreach targeted at second-generation realities. Most research concentrates on first-generation migrants; the experiences of British-born men who shoulder family obligations are less well documented but deserve focus.

What I See in Therapy: Guilt, Ambivalence, and Exhaustion

In my private practice at Male Minds Counselling, I witness expressions of ambivalence that don’t fit neatly into “good” or “bad.” Clients say:

“I’m proud I can help, but I never get to save anything.”
“My cousins depend on me, but I don’t want to start a family with empty pockets.”
“Every message from home stirs guilt. Every refusal feels like I’m betraying them.”

They don’t necessarily resent their families. Many are deeply loyal. But constant expectation like text messages, WhatsApp pleas, aunties tagging them in family-group chats, creates a moral, emotional, and financial weight that builds slowly, silently, until it breaks them down. And often, they don’t talk about it, not with friends, not with siblings, often not even with their partner.

Toward a kinder economy of obligation

If we accept that migration creates sprawling, cross-border families whose needs are both financial and emotional, then we must also accept responsibility for the conditions under which those obligations are met. The remittance lifeline benefits those who receive it, but it can extract a cost from those who sustain it. Men born and raised in Britain to immigrant parents carry obligations that are as much about identity and honour as they are about money. Recognising this is the first step: in counselling rooms, in community centres, in financial policy and in public conversation.

We need more than charity or technocratic fixes. We need conversations that make space for ambivalence, tools that protect senders from exploitation, social supports that relieve single points of pressure, and policies that understand diasporic duty as a lived reality, not an abstract transaction. Only then can the weight of obligation be reshaped into something less like a burden and more like a mutual backstop — generous, sustainable, and honouring of both sides of the Atlantic life these families now lead.

How Male Minds Counselling Supports Men Under Financial & Family Pressure

At Male Minds Counselling in Reading, Berkshire, I regularly work with men who feel torn between two worlds, the expectations of their family’s culture, and the financial realities of life in Britain. Many of the young men I support are between 18 and 35, often second-generation immigrants navigating identity, responsibility, masculinity, and pressure to send money back home.

These pressures aren’t small. They affect stress, self-esteem, relationships, career choices, and overall mental health. Counselling offers a confidential, non-judgmental space to make sense of it all. In therapy, I help men to:

• Understand the emotional impact of remittance pressure
• Manage guilt, obligation, and family expectations
• Set healthier boundaries without losing connection
• Build confidence and a stronger sense of identity
• Reduce stress, anxiety, and burnout
• Explore cultural identity and internalised responsibility
• Improve communication in relationships
• Develop coping strategies for financial strain and overwhelm

My approach combines psychodynamic, CBT, and humanistic therapy to help men explore both the deeper roots of pressure and the practical steps to manage it. I provide counselling across Reading, Caversham, Tilehurst, Earley, Woodley, Whitley, Southcote, Wokingham, Shinfield, Lower Earley, and the wider Berkshire area — as well as online throughout the UK.

If you’re a man feeling stretched between family expectations and your own life here in Britain, you don’t have to carry this alone. Male Minds Counselling — specialising in supporting men’s mental health, cultural identity, and emotional wellbeing.
Book a session or learn more at: malemindscounselling.com

Cassim