BANGLADESH INSTITUTE OF INTERNATIONAL AND STRATEGIC STUDIES

OVERSEAS LABOUR MIGRATION AND SOCIAL MOBILITY: STRATEGISING INFORMAL SOCIAL SECURITY BY RURAL BANGLADESHIS

Author: Syeda Rozana Rashid

DOI Link: https://www.doi.org/10.56888/BIISSj2009v30n3a3

ABSTRACT

The possibilities of economic prosperity, upward mobility and status improvement are some of the most powerful images that shape the desires and expectations of overseas labour migration of Bangladeshis. In a development perspective, investment of remittances for building houses, boosting kinship ties and status seeking may appear as unproductive and irrational. But people in Bangladesh have a different logic. In a situation where the state is unable to provide formal insurance and guarantees of wellbeing, people always feel the need to secure their position within the society via their investment in social capital.The absence of well-functioning capital and formal credit facilities for poor people creates strong pressures for overseas migration as a strategy to build informal social net. The paper suggests that the extent to which overseasmigration can be a route to self-sustaining progress for people and the state depends largely on an efficient infrastructure, and welldesigned and carefully implemented formal protection and insurances.