Migration is a form of social mobility where people move from one country (or part of a country) to another and tend to live there for at least a while [1]. Migration processes include diverse decision-making sequences, which must acknowledge various factors in family life and biographical planning within a social context of the neighborhood, friendships and other social relationships and material living conditions. Furthermore, migration decisions are considered to last for different time episodes or irreversibly for the rest of a lifetime.

Acknowledging such forms of embeddedness implies acknowledging that people behave as members of households, families, neighborhoods, clans, or other collectivities. In doing so, the analysis will often merge the competencies of economics, sociology, psychology, history, and other social sciences to identify the “neglected links” [2] that keep the economy and society together. Financial and social remittances reflect the profound extent of migrants’ integration within their original social networks and the socio-cultural background of their country of origin, as well as their adaptation and engagement within the destination country’s environment.

This study evaluates and synthesizes the literature on social remittances by structuring their phases, mechanisms, and channels of transmission, with a particular focus on post-transition economies. Existing research has made important strides in systematizing social remittance literature. Tuccio and Wahba [3] systematically organized the literature on social remittances into three primary categories: economic, social, and political norms, with each category analyzed at both the macro and micro levels. More recently, Diniega and Sakdapolrak [4] extended the scope of review by focusing on environmental social remittances, identifying practices transferred across borders that foster sustainable agriculture, household behavior, and renewable energy use, as well as barriers to their adoption. White and Grabowska [5] provided a concise synthesis of social remittances research in Central and Eastern Europe, alongside their own analysis of how migration has shaped broader patterns of social change in Poland since 1989. Fihel and Kaczmarczyk [6] also provided a brief synthesis of the literature on migrant networks in eleven post-transition countries that have joined the EU, demonstrating that these networks function as transnational social spheres that facilitate the transfer of knowledge, practices, and norms between migrants and their countries of origin. Building on these contributions, the present study continues the review of contemporary literature on social remittances, focusing on post-transition economies in Central, Eastern, and Southeastern Europe (CESEE) and Central Asia.

The post-transition countries forming the focus of this review are defined by their shared historical experience of a fundamental systemic transformation from socialist, centrally planned economies to market-oriented systems, primarily during the 1990s. The notion of post-transition signifies that the period of intense, large-scale institutional and economic reforms had largely concluded, with reform processes reaching a certain limit by the onset of the Global Financial Crisis (Stojkov & Zalduendo, [7]). This common point of departure creates a valuable analytical lens for studying social remittances for several reasons. First, these societies underwent rapid, simultaneous changes in economic, political, and social institutions, creating a context in which imported ideas and practices could have a pronounced impact. Second, the opening of borders triggered significant and varied waves of migration, creating extensive transnational networks. Third, the diaspora from these regions is multi-generational, comprising those who left during the socialist era, immediately after its collapse, and following EU accession, allowing for analysis of how different migration cohorts transfer distinct social resources. Focusing on this group allows us to examine how social remittances operate within a set of countries grappling with similar legacies and challenges of systemic change, thereby offering more comparable and generalizable insights than a geographically dispersed sample might provide.

This study begins with a brief overview of migration theories that leads to the theoretical concept of social remittances, before proceeding to a literature review focused specifically on post-transition countries. It then advances targeted directions for future research of this evolving field.