Socio-economic Impact of Remittances in Bangladesh

Abstract

Outflow of Bangladeshi labor generated significant financial inflow to the country in the form of remittances. Remittances are crucial for economy of Bangladesh. It constitutes more than one-fourth of the foreign exchange earning In I 998-99, remittances contributed 22 percent in financing imports. 171e field work for this study was conducted in three areas, Kushtia, Noakhali and Sylhet. In these three areas 210 respondents were interviewed. The migrants on an average are staying overseas for more than. five years. 71 percent of them were less than 35 years of age. 6.19 percent of the remittance sending persons were illiterate, and about 43.33 percent o_ (them had an educational background from Class 1 to Secondary School Certificate. It finds that a good number of migrant workers had education up to Higher Secondly and Bachelor degree levels. About 17 percent of remittance senders all are students then they went abroad 26 percent of them were unemployed at the time of migration. During their migration period a large segment of them was working as construction laborer, another group worked as agricultural laborer’s. The study traces the socio-economic background of the migrant workers and establishes the fact that this group of people does not belong to the category of the poorest of the poor. The major destinations of the migrants were the middle East, . followed by South East and East Asian countries. UAE, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait and Malaysia constituted important destinations of these migrants. It was further seen that most of them migrated at a young age………………………………