Does migration matter for household welfare in Bangladesh?

ABSTRACT

This paper explores the impact of international migration on household welfare in Bangladesh based on the household income and expenditure survey 2010. An asset index was constructed to measure the long-run welfare impact of migration using principal component analysis. The findings of the study indicate that the households with a migrant member have a significantly higher asset score compared to the non-migrant. The migrant households also have a lower expenditure share on food and a higher calorie intake per capita suggesting they are less poor compared to non-migrants. Besides, the study found robust evidence that the families having a migrant in a lucrative destination are well-off than those with a migrant in a less desirable destination. The overall findings suggest that the welfare of the households not only depends on the households’ migration status but also their destination choices.

KEYWORDS:

• Migration
• welfare
• asset accumulation
• destination choice
• Bangladesh

JEL CLASSIFICATION:

• F22
• I3
• J01
• O15

Acknowledgments

I would like to thank Prof. Dr. German Calfat for his helpful comments and suggestions as well as for his comprehensive guidance in doing this research. I acknowledge valuable comments by Joachim De Weerdt, Alellie B. Sobreviñas, Loresel Abainza, and the participants at the research dissemination seminar of the Institute of Development Policy (IOB), University of Antwerp, Belgium. Thanks to the authority of Bangladesh Bureau of Statistics (BBS) for giving access to HIES 2010 dataset. I acknowledge financial support from IOB and VLIR-UOS. I am grateful to the referees for useful comments and suggestions.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Correction Statement

This article has been republished with minor changes. These changes do not impact the academic content of the article.

Notes

1. Ratio of district level international migrants of 2015 is taken from Bureau of Manpower Employment and Training (BMET) in Bangladesh.

2. To find the linkage between per capita household expenditure and food’s budget share the study used the following equation: $W={\beta }_0+{\beta }_{1}logX+v_i$; where $W$ is food’s budget share and $X$ represents per capita household expenditure.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the Research Grant from the Institute of Development Policy (IOB), University of Antwerp, Belgium, and scholarships from VLIR-UOS.

Notes on contributors

Firoz Ahmed

Firoz Ahmed is a faculty member at the Economics Discipline, Social Science School, Khulna University, Bangladesh. His research interest lies in the field of development economics, labor economics, and environmental economics. His published articles include the issue of food security, voting behavior, and environment issues in Bangladesh.