Migration as a risky enterprise: A diagnostic for Bangladesh

Narayan Das, Alain de Janvry (), Sakib Mahmood and Elisabeth Sadoulet ()

Department of Agricultural & Resource Economics, UC Berkeley, Working Paper Series from Department of Agricultural & Resource Economics, UC Berkeley

Abstract: We provide here a diagnostic of migration of Bangladeshi workers to foreign countries. We show that migration is an important contributor to the economy of Bangladesh and to the welfare of migrants, largely male workers from poor rural households. Based on high intensity recall data, we evidence, however, that migration failures may be as high as one third of attempts at migrating, with large financial losses for households with a failed migrant. The main causes of failure appear to be abuse by fraudulent agents and financial constraints. Failed migrants tend to have lesser support from community migrant networks and to be from more rural environments. Providing assistance to candidates to migration could thus be a major welfare enhancing initiative.

Keywords: Social and Behavioral Sciences; Migration; Bangladesh (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2014-01-01
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (3)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.escholarship.org/uc/item/6574658k.pdf;origin=repeccitec (application/pdf)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:cdl:agrebk:qt6574658k

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in Department of Agricultural & Resource Economics, UC Berkeley, Working Paper Series from Department of Agricultural & Resource Economics, UC Berkeley Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Lisa Schiff ().