Skip to main content

Advertisement

SpringerLink
Log in

Causes of Urban Migration in Bangladesh: Evidence from the Urban Health Survey

  • Research Briefs
  • Published:
Population Research and Policy Review Aims and scope Submit manuscript

Abstract

Mass migration is increasing urban populations globally. One country where urban migration is significantly increasing is Bangladesh, where systematic research will explore the reasons for urban migration in order to devise policies in this area, including maintaining the balance of urban–rural developments. This study used the Urban Health Survey (UHS) 2013 to ascertain the reasons for urban migration in large divisional cities in Bangladesh. The 2013 survey examined the differences between male and female migration, alongside any significant sociodemographic factors that might contribute to their motivation for moving to the city. The survey revealed that a majority of women (64.8%) migrated for family purposes, for example, joining husbands or in-laws, or parents/children. However, in recent years, female migrants have been involved in income-generating activities mostly due to a recent garment-making boom in Dhaka and its suburbs. A higher proportion of men (85.3%) moved to urban areas for work-related reasons: searching for new jobs, better income, or transfer in services. Among the sample in this study, 77% of the respondents (79.3% female and 73.5% male) migrated from villages. This migration mostly centered on Dhaka, the capital city of Bangladesh, where 68.1% of the total study sample migrated followed by 15.7% who went to Chittagong. The results indicate that the contemporary urban-centered economic policy in Bangladesh might require revision to accommodate the increased migrants from rural areas.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this article

Log in via an institution

Price excludes VAT (USA)
Tax calculation will be finalised during checkout.

Instant access to the full article PDF.

Institutional subscriptions

Fig. 1
Fig. 2
Fig. 3

Similar content being viewed by others

References

  • Adams, A. M., Islam, R., & Ahmed, T. (2015). Who serves the urban poor? A geospatial and descriptive analysis of health services in slum settlements in Dhaka, Bangladesh. Health Policy and planning, 30(suppl 1), i32–i45.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Agresti, A., & Kateri, M. (2011). Categorical data analysis. In International encyclopedia of statistical science, (pp. 206–208). New York: Springer.

  • Ahmed, F. Z., Greenleaf, A., & Sacks, A. (2014a). The paradox of export growth in areas of weak governance: The case of the ready made garment sector in Bangladesh. World Development, 56, 258–271.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Ahmed, S. J., Nahiduzzaman, K. M., & Bramley, G. (2014b). From a town to a megacity: 400 years of growth. In Dhaka Megacity, (pp. 23–43). New York: Springer.

  • Akhter, S., & Bauer, S. (2014). Household level determinants of rural-urban migration in Bangladesh. International Journal of Social, Human Science and Engineering, 8(1), 24–27.

    Google Scholar 

  • Al Jaber, S., Ghosh, A. K., & Mahmud, M. S. (2014). Using time series of satellite images to detect vegetation cover change in dhaka city. Journal of Geographic Information System, 6(06), 653.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Angeles, G., Al-Sabir, A., Lance, P., Buckner, B., Streatfield, P., Karar, Z., et al. (2013). Bangladesh urban health survey (uhs) 2013. National Institute of Population Research and Training (NIPORT); International Centre for Diarrhoeal Disease Research, Bangladesh (icddr,b); MEASURE Evaluation, 2016. https://doi.org/10.15139/s3/12274, UNC Dataverse, V1.

  • Barrios, S., Bertinelli, L., & Strobl, E. (2006). Climatic change and rural–urban migration: The case of sub-Saharan Africa. Journal of Urban Economics, 60(3), 357–371.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Benjamin, D. J., Berger, J. O., Johannesson, M., Nosek, B. A., Wagenmakers, E.-J., Berk, R., et al. (2017). Redefine statistical significance. Nature Human Behaviour, (p. 1).

  • Berg, C. N., & Shahe Emran, M. (2017). Microfinance and vulnerability to seasonal famine in a rural economy: Evidence from monga in Bangladesh.

  • Biswas, R. K., Rahman, N., Kabir, E., & Raihan, F. (2017). Women’s opinion on the justification of physical spousal violence: A quantitative approach to model the most vulnerable households in Bangladesh. PLoS ONE, 12(11), e0187884.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Boyd, M., & Grieco, E. (2003). Women and migration: Incorporating gender into international migration theory. Migration Information Source, 1(35), 28.

    Google Scholar 

  • Brueckner, J. K., & Lall, S. (2015). Cities in developing countries: Fueled by rural-urban migration, lacking in tenure security, and short of affordable housing. Handbook of Regional and Urban Economics, 5, 1399–1455.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Bryan, G., Chowdhury, S., & Mobarak, A. M. (2014). Underinvestment in a profitable technology: The case of seasonal migration in Bangladesh. Econometrica, 82(5), 1671–1748.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Buch, T., Hamann, S., Niebuhr, A., & Rossen, A. (2014). What makes cities attractive? The determinants of urban labour migration in Germany. Urban Studies, 51(9), 1960–1978.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Christiaensen, L., & Todo, Y. (2014). Poverty reduction during the rural–urban transformation–the role of the missing middle. World Development, 63, 43–58.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Debnath, R., & Amin, A. N. (2016). A geographic information system-based logical urban growth model for predicting spatial growth of an urban area. Environment and Planning B: Planning and Design, 43(3), 580–597.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Deshingkar, P., & Grimm, S. (2005). Internal migration and development: A global perspective (Vol. 19). New York: United Nations Publications.

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • Ebrahim, S., Kinra, S., Bowen, L., Andersen, E., Ben-Shlomo, Y., Lyngdoh, T., et al. (2010). The effect of rural-to-urban migration on obesity and diabetes in India: A cross-sectional study. PLoS Medicine, 7(4), e1000268.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Farhana, K. M., Rahman, S. A., & Rahman, M. (2012). Factors of migration in urban Bangladesh: An empirical study of poor migrants in Rajshahi city.

  • Feldman, S. (2015). Bangladesh in 2014: Illusive democracy. Asian Survey, 55(1), 67–74.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Ferdaush, J. (2015). The Urbanization of Dhaka City and the Sustainable Urban Development in Bangladesh. PhD thesis, Savannah State University.

  • Giani, L. (2006). Migration and education: Child migrants in Bangladesh. Sussex Migration WorkingPaperno, 33.

  • Gray, C. L., & Mueller, V. (2012). Natural disasters and population mobility in Bangladesh. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 109(16), 6000–6005.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Hagen-Zanker, J. (2008). Why do people migrate? A review of the theoretical literature.

  • Haggblade, S., Hazell, P., & Reardon, T. (2010). The rural non-farm economy: Prospects for growth and poverty reduction. World Development, 38(10), 1429–1441.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Hahn, Y., Islam, A., Nuzhat, K., Smyth, R., Yang, H.-S., et al. (2015). Education, marriage and fertility: Long-term evidence from a female stipend program in Bangladesh. Melbourne: Monash University.

    Google Scholar 

  • Haque, R., & Rana, E. A. (2014). Urban youth delinquency: Proliferation of criminal gangs and neighbourhood violence in dhaka, Bangladesh.

  • Harpham, T. (2009). Urban health in developing countries: What do we know and where do we go? Health & Place, 15(1), 107–116.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Heath, R., & Mobarak, A. M. (2015). Manufacturing growth and the lives of Bangladeshi women. Journal of Development Economics, 115, 1–15.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Hossain, M. (2001). Rural-urban migration in Bangladesh: A micro-level study. In Brazil IUSSP conference. August, (pp. 20–24).

  • Hossain, S. (2005). Poverty, household strategies and coping with urban life: examining livelihood framework in Dhaka city, Bangladesh. Bangladesh e-Journal of Sociology, 2(1), 1–8.

    Google Scholar 

  • Hossain, S. (2013). Migration, urbanization and poverty in Dhaka, Bangladesh. Journal of the Asiatic Society of Bangladesh (Hum.), 58(2), 369–382.

    Google Scholar 

  • Ishtiaque, A., & Mahmud, M. S. (2017). Migration objectives and their fulfillment: A micro study of the rural urban migrants of the slums of dhaka city. Geografia-Malaysian Journal of Society and Space, 7(4), 24–29.

    Google Scholar 

  • Ishtiaque, A., & Ullah, M. S. (2013). The influence of factors of migration on the migration status of rural-urban migrants in Dhaka, Bangladesh. Human Geographies, 7(2), 45.

    Google Scholar 

  • Islam, M. M., & Azad, K. M. A. K. (2008). Rural–urban migration and child survival in urban Bangladesh: Are the urban migrants and poor disadvantaged? Journal of Biosocial Science, 40(1), 83–96.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Islam, M. S., Rana, M. M. P., & Ahmed, R. (2014). Environmental perception during rapid population growth and urbanization: A case study of Dhaka city. Environment, Development and Sustainability, 16(2), 443–453.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Jahan, M. (2012). Impact of rural urban migration on physical and social environment: The case of dhaka city. International Journal of Development and Sustainability, 1(2), 186–194.

    Google Scholar 

  • Jamil, K., Streatfield, P. K., Arifeen, S., Angeles, G., Rahman, M., Ahsan, K. Z., et al. (2014). Bangladesh urban health survey 2013: Preliminary results. National Institute of Population Research and Training (NIPORT), MEASURE Evaluation, UNC-Chapel Hill, International Centre for Diarrhoeal Disease Research Bangladesh (ICDDRB).

  • Kamruzzaman, M., & Hakim, M. A. (2015). Child criminalization at slum areas in Dhaka city. American Journal of Psychology and Cognitive Science, 1(4), 107–111.

    Google Scholar 

  • Karim, K. R., Emmelin, M., Lindberg, L., & Wamala, S. (2016). Gender and women development initiatives in Bangladesh: A study of rural mother center. Social Work in Public Health, 31(5), 369–386.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Kazlauskiene˙, A., & Rinkeviˇcius, L. (2006). Lithuanian brain drain causes: Push and pull factors. Engineering Economics, 46(1), 27–37.

    Google Scholar 

  • Khan, M. M., Kr¨amer, A., et al. (2009). Factors associated with being underweight, overweight and obese among ever-married non-pregnant urban women in Bangladesh. Singapore Medical Journal, 50(8), 804.

    Google Scholar 

  • Lall, S. V., & Selod, H. (2006). Rural-urban migration in developing countries: A survey of theoretical predictions and empirical findings (Vol. 3915). Washington, DC: World Bank Publications.

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • Lu, Y. (2010). Rural-urban migration and health: Evidence from longitudinal data in indonesia. Social Science and Medicine, 70(3), 412–419.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Lumley, T. (2011). Complex surveys: A guide to analysis using R (Vol. 565). Hoboken: Wiley.

    Google Scholar 

  • Marshall, R., & Rahman, S. (2013). Internal migration in Bangladesh: character, drivers and policy issues. United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), New York.

  • Massey, D. S., Arango, J., Hugo, G., Kouaouci, A., Pellegrino, A., & Taylor, J. E. (1993). Theories of international migration: A review and appraisal. Population and Development Review, 19(3), 431–466.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Mberu, B., Béguy, D., & Ezeh, A. C. (2017). Internal migration, urbanization and slums in sub-Saharan Africa. In Africa’s Population: In Search of a Demographic Dividend, (pp. 315–332). New York: Springer.

  • McClair, T. L., Hossain, T., Sultana, N., Burnett-Zieman, B., Yam, E. A., Hossain, S., et al. (2017). Paying for sex by young men who live on the streets in Dhaka city: Compounded sexual risk in a vulnerable migrant community. Journal of Adolescent Health, 60(2), S29–S34.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Mohit, M. A. (2012). Bastee settlements of Dhaka city, Bangladesh: A review of policy approaches and challenges ahead. Procedia-Social and Behavioral Sciences, 36, 611–622.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Monem, M., & Muhammad, H. (2010). Higher education in Bangladesh: Status, issues and prospects. Pakistan Journal of Social Sciences (PJSS), 30(2), 293–305.

    Google Scholar 

  • Morshed, N., Yorke, C., & Zhang, Q. (2017). Urban expansion pattern and land use dynamics in Dhaka, 1989–2014. The Professional Geographer, (pp. 1–16).

  • Muhammad, A. (2011). Wealth and deprivation: Ready-made garments industry in Bangladesh. Economic and Political Weekly, (pp. 23–27.

  • Mullick, M. S. I., & Goodman, R. (2005). The prevalence of psychiatric disorders among 5–10 year olds in rural, urban and slum areas in Bangladesh. Social Psychiatry and Psychiatric Epidemiology, 40(8), 663–671.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Muzzini, E., & Aparicio, G. (2013). Urban growth and spatial transition in Nepal: An initial assessment. Washington, DC: World Bank Publications.

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • Nguyen, L. D., Raabe, K., & Grote, U. (2015). Rural–urban migration, household vulnerability, and welfare in Vietnam. World Development, 71, 79–93.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • NIPORT, icddr,b, and UNC-Chapel Hill (2013). Bangladesh urban health survey 2013 final report. https://www.measureevaluation.org/resources/publications/tr-15-117, funded by USAID.

  • Parveen, S. (2007). Gender awareness of rural women in Bangladesh. Journal of International Women’s Studies, 9(1), 253.

    Google Scholar 

  • Penning-Rowsell, E. C., Sultana, P., & Thompson, P. M. (2013). The last resort? Population movement in response to climate-related hazards in Bangladesh. Environmental Science & Policy, 27, S44–S59.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Pramanik, M. M. A., & Stathakis, D. (2016). Forecasting urban sprawl in Dhaka city of Bangladesh. Environment and Planning B: Planning and Design, 43(4), 756–771.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Qiang, L. (2003). An analysis of push and pull factors in the migration of rural workers in china [j]. Social Sciences In China, 1, 125–136.

    Google Scholar 

  • Rahaman, M. M., & Ahmed, T. S. (2016). Affordable water pricing for slums dwellers in Dhaka metropolitan area: The case of three slums. Journal of Water Resource Engineering and Management, 3(1), 15–33.

    Google Scholar 

  • Rahman, H. Z. (2014). Urbanization in Bangladesh: challenges and priorities. In Bangladesh Economists Forum. June, (pp. 21–22).

  • Rahman, M. H., & Siddiqui, S. A. (2015). Female rmg worker: Economic contribution in Bangladesh. International Journal of Science and Research Publications, 5, 9.

    Google Scholar 

  • Rana, M. M. P. (2011). Urbanization and sustainability: Challenges and strategies for sustainable urban development in Bangladesh. Environment, Development and Sustainability, 13(1), 237–256.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Randolph, G. F., & Naik, M. (2017). An analysis of migrant-intensity in India and Indonesia: Seeing internal migration patterns through a place-based lens. Environment and Urbanization ASIA, 8(1), 40–58.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Rouf, M. A., & Jahan, S. (2007). Spatial and temporal patterns of urbanization in Bangladesh. Urbanization in Bangladesh: patterns, issues and approaches to planning. Bangladesh Institute of Planners, Dhaka, (pp. 1–24).

  • Santos, M. (2017). The shared space: The two circuits of the urban economy in underdeveloped countries. Abingdon: Routledge.

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • Seto, K. C. (2011). Exploring the dynamics of migration to mega-delta cities in Asia and Africa: Contemporary drivers and future scenarios. Global Environmental Change, 21, S94–S107.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Seto, K. C., S´anchez-Rodr´ıguez, R., & Fragkias, M. (2010). The new geography of contemporary urbanization and the environment. Annual Review of Environment and Resources, 35, 167–194.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Sharma, M., & Zaman, H. (2013). Who migrates overseas and is it worth their while? An assessment of household survey data from Bangladesh. The Journal of Developing Areas, 47(1), 281–302.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Simini, F., González, M. C., Maritan, A., & Barabási, A.-L. (2012). A universal model for mobility and migration patterns. Nature, 484(7392), 96–100.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Streatfield, P. K., & Karar, Z. A. (2008). Population challenges for Bangladesh in the coming decades. Journal of Health, Population, and Nutrition, 26(3), 261.

    Google Scholar 

  • Tacoli, C., McGranahan, G., & Satterthwaite, D. (2015). Urbanisation, rural-urban migration and urban poverty. London: IIED London.

    Google Scholar 

  • Thu Le, H., & Booth, A. L. (2014). Inequality in Vietnamese urban–rural living standards, 1993–2006. Review of Income and Wealth, 60(4), 862–886.

    Google Scholar 

  • Ullah, A. A. (2004). Bright city lights and slums of Dhaka city: Determinants of rural-urban migration in Bangladesh. Migration Letters, 1(1), 26.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • United Nations (2014). World urbanization prospects: The 2014 revision. Population division, United Nations. ISBN 978-92-1-151517-6.

  • Upton, G. J. (2016). Categorical data analysis by example. Hoboken: Wiley.

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • VanderEnde, K. E., Sibley, L. M., Cheong, Y. F., Naved, R. T., & Yount, K. M. (2015). Community economic status and intimate partner violence against women in Bangladesh: Compositional or contextual effects? Violence Against Women, 21(6), 679–699.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • World Bank (2016). Helping Bangladesh Reach Middle Income Country Status. Retrieved November 28, 2017, from http://www.worldbankorg/en/news/feature/2016/04/07/World_Bank_Group_s_New_Country_Partnership_Framework_helps_Bangladesh_Reach_Middle_Income_Country_Status.

  • World Health Organization. (2000). The world health report 2000: Health systems: Improving performance. Geneva: World Health Organization.

    Google Scholar 

  • Young, A. (2013). Inequality, the urban-rural gap, and migration. The Quarterly Journal of Economics, 128(4), 1727–1785.

    Article  Google Scholar 

Download references

Acknowledgements

The authors would like to acknowledge the collaborative effort of the National Institute of Population Research and Training (NIPORT), Measure Evaluation, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, USA, and International Centre for Diarrhoeal Disease Research, Bangladesh (icddr,b), who made their data available for free. We would like to express our gratitude to the Faculty of Health, Engineering and Sciences (HES) of the University of Southern Queensland for the technical support it provided.

Funding

This research did not receive any specific grant from funding agencies in the public, commercial, or not-for-profit sectors.

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Transport and Road Safety (TARS) Research Centre, University of New South Wales, High Street, Kensington, NSW, Australia

    Raaj Kishore Biswas

  2. School of Agricultural, Computational and Environmental Sciences, University of Southern Queensland, West Street, Darling Heights, Toowoomba, QLD, Australia

    Enamul Kabir

  3. College of Nursing, Midwifery and Healthcare, University of West London, London, UK

    Hafiz T. A. Khan

Authors
  1. Raaj Kishore Biswas
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  2. Enamul Kabir
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  3. Hafiz T. A. Khan
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Contributions

RKB conceptualized the study, compiled the data, synthesized the analysis plan, performed statistical analysis, and drafted the manuscript. EK assisted to develop the methodology and edited the manuscript. The manuscript was critically reviewed and edited by HTAK.

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Raaj Kishore Biswas.

Ethics declarations

Conflict of interest

The authors declare that they have no competing interests. All authors read the final manuscript and approved it.

Ethical Approval

This article does not contain any studies with human participants performed by any of the authors. The Bangladesh demographic and health Surveys were approved by ICF Macro Institutional Review Board and the National Research Ethics Committee of the Bangladesh Medical Research Council. A written consent about the survey was given by participants before interview. All identification of the respondents was dis-identified before publishing data. The secondary data sets analyzed during the current study are freely available upon request from the DHS website at http://dhsprogram.com/data/available-datasets.com.

Additional information

Publisher's Note

Springer Nature remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations.

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

About this article

Check for updates. Verify currency and authenticity via CrossMark

Cite this article

Biswas, R.K., Kabir, E. & Khan, H.T.A. Causes of Urban Migration in Bangladesh: Evidence from the Urban Health Survey. Popul Res Policy Rev 38, 593–614 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11113-019-09532-3

Download citation

  • Received:

  • Accepted:

  • Published:

  • Issue Date:

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11113-019-09532-3

Keywords

Search

Navigation