RURAL-URBAN MIGRATION IN BANGLADESH: PATTERN AND IMPACT

Abstract

It is well-documented that migration in general and rural-urban migration in particular contributes a lot to the socioeconomic transformation of both global and national economies. Keeping this importance into consideration in the context of Bangladesh, this endeavor has chosen the field of migration for research. This study broadly focuses on two issues of internal rural-urban migration and these are pattern and impact. Specifically speaking, this study explores the pattern in terms of flow analysis based on cause, destination and income distribution of the migrant-sending households as well as in terms of some probability model-based analysis. It also identifies the determinants of rural-urban migration at both household and community levels as the impact of these attributes on migration itself on the one hand and on the other hand, it determines the impact of rural-urban migration on income, expenditure and income distribution of the households at origin.

This study has used the relevant portion of the data set generated by the project titled ―Rural- urban Migration and its Implications for Food Security in Bangladesh‖ financed by USAID and EU under NFPCSP program with the technical support of FAO of the UN and FPMU of the Ministry of Food, GoB. This study has resorted to both descriptive and inferential statistical tools and techniques for analyzing the data. The inferential tools include Classical Multiple Regression Model, Poisson Regression Model, Working-Leser Model, Binary Logistic Regression Model, IV Regression Model (based on NELM Hypotheses), Discriminant Analysis and some Probability Models. Categorically speaking, this study has applied Classical Multiple Regression Model, Binary Logistic Regression Model, Poisson Regression Model and Discriminant Analysis to identify the determinants of rural-urban migration; Working-Leser Model, IV Regression Model and Lorenz curve analysis to find out the impact of rural-urban migration on expenditure, income and income distribution; and Working-Leser Model and some Probability Models to analyze the pattern of rural-urban migration. vii

This study discovers that community level income, female wages rate, distance from the educational institutions, distance from the commercial areas, distance from rail station, and community level proportion of international migrant- sending households are the significant determinants of rural-urban migration at community level. It identifies that education level of the household head, occupation of the household head, total operative land, debt status, sex of the household head, dependency ratio, age of the household head, and family size are the common predictors of rural-urban migration at household level determined by both logistic and Poisson regression models. It is also evidenced from the findings that for variation in analytical technique, the predictors vary as well. For example, in the multiple logistic regression model, region is identified as a highly significant predictor while in the Poisson Regression model it is not; conversely, migration network is identified as a highly significant predictor in the Poisson Regression model while it is not in the multiple logistic regression model. In addition, the discriminant function analysis has identified some significant discriminating factors that distinguish between migrant sending and non-migrant households at rural origin. The major discriminators are identified as Years of schooling of the household head, Household size and Age of the household head and apart from this an overall positive discriminating impact of dummy variables is derived from the hierarchical discriminant function analysis. Though these discriminators are not deemed to be the determinants of migration, these can be applied for satisfactorily classifying the rural households into two groups as migrant-sending and non- migrant households. Though the analysis on identifying determinants apparently seems to contradict with the title of the thesis, actually this analysis focuses on the impact of some attributes on rural-urban migration and this is also one kind of impact analysis viewed reversely.

The model-based analysis explores that rural to urban migration exerts negative impact, though insignificant, on on-farm income and significant positive impact on off-farm income. Moreover, the analysis on expenditure pattern by migration status explores that with the increase in per viii

capita total expenditure, the share of per capita agricultural expenditure significantly decreases for the migrant-sending households. In addition, the share of food expenditure increases significantly with the increase in per capita total expenditure for these households. These findings give the indication that rural to urban migration functions as a route out of agriculture in Bangladesh and a qualitatively positive change takes place through a better and more expensive food-mix for the migrant-sending households in rural origin. The overall finding implies that migration tends to exert negative impact on farm income and positive impact on food security. Furthermore, the Gini-coefficient analysis finds out a positive contribution of this migration to income distribution in the left-behind community of the migrants.

This study has tried to explore some characteristics of rural-urban migration through model- based analysis that are distinct from the typical features of migration pattern, particularly internal rural-urban, as documented by different studies at home and abroad. The findings reveal that proportionately, a declining trend of rural-urban migration flow is found out to Dhaka; while the opposite trend is found towards district and upazilla headquarters. It is also observed that migration flow due to poverty from rural to urban areas shows a declining tendency; whereas the flow due to natural calamities and sociopolitical victimization shows an increasing tendency. The probability model-based analysis discovers that all of the concerned models exhibit better fits for both datasets from Comilla- district survey by Hossain (2000) and nationwide survey (RUM- 2012) tending to prove the time-invariant applicability of these models on both small regional sample to large national sample in the context of Bangladesh. The key findings from this analysis reveal that the incidence of single-migrant households is on rise over the time and the rural-urban migration flow from the West tends to be higher than that from the East.

Overall, the study conveys the key messages that along with the individual characteristics of the migrants both household and community level attributes influence the internal rural-urban migration decision in Bangladesh; rural-urban migration contributes significantly to off-farm ix

income, food security and income distribution at origin; and rural-urban migration pattern has changed in Bangladesh in course of time in terms of destination, cause and demographic feature.

The succinct policy implications from this study reveal that rural-urban migration process deserves to be well-managed and the leverages resulted from this process should be properly utilized. The findings also suggest that more development in district and upazilla headquarters is needed to trim the migration flow rate to Dhaka.