Assignment on Migration and Development: The Case of Bangladesh

International migration plays a vital and indispensable role in the national economy of Bangladesh. Because on the one hand it reduces unemployment and on the other hand it results in remittance flows to the country, which serve as an important but inexpensive source of much needed foreign exchange. In Bangladesh, migration has kept the unemployment rate virtually unchanged since the 1980s, although the growth rate of the labor force is almost twice that of the population growth. The continuous outflow of working age and the accompanying inflow of remittances have played a major role in keeping the unemployment rate stable. Migration, therefore eased the pressure of alternative employment creation on successive governments.

 Nature and Extent of International Employment

2.1 Scale

According to BMET data, from 1976 to January 2006, 4.55 million Bangladeshis have gone abroad as short term-migrants.[1] Since 1976, there has been as steady increase in the flow of migration every year except declining trends in the years 1994, 2000, and 2001, since 2002, however, the number of short term labor migrants is again rising.MORE