Working Hard for the Money: Bangladesh Faces Challenges of Large-Scale Labor Migration

Bangladesh, meaning "Bengal nation," is a low-lying country located on the Bay of Bengal between Burma and India, and has a territory of nearly 57,000 square miles (147,570 square kilometers). Bangladesh emerged as an independent state in 1971, separating itself from Pakistan after nine months of bitter conflict with enormous casualties of Bengali civilians.

Bangladesh boasts a population of 158 million people, making the rather small country the seventh most populous in the world and one of the most densely populated. With a majority Muslim Sunni population (85 to 90 percent), Bangladesh is also the third largest Muslim-majority country in the world, after Indonesia and Pakistan. The vast majority of the citizens of Bangladesh self identify as ethnically Bengali, though tribal groups concentrated mainly in the regions bordering Burma are also part of the country's landscape.

Bangladesh has registered a 5 to 6 percent rate of annual economic growth since the mid-1990s, and has made important progress in the areas of primary education, population control, and the reduction of hunger. Despite these positive developments, however, poverty in Bangladesh is widespread, affecting the lives of perhaps half of the population. In this predominantly rural country, overpopulation and environmental degradation have contributed to a large, landless population.

About 61 percent of the population of Bangladesh is of working age (15 to 64-years-old), while 34 percent is under the age of 14, indicating a moderate youth bulge. Those who are employed in the formal labor market often work just a few hours a week at low wages. Thus, while the estimated unemployment rate is relatively low at about 5 percent, the problem of underemployment prevails.

Widespread poverty, underemployment, and a youthful age structure have all contributed to the predominance of economically motivated international migration from Bangladesh. The contract labor migration of less-skilled men to the Arab Gulf states and to the emerging economies of Asia has been especially prominent. Though these temporary movements in which workers are authorized by receiving countries to work for legally specified periods of limited duration have been integral in contributing to the economy of Bangladesh, this migration stream comes with its own set of problems.

This profile offers a broad overview of trends in international migration for Bangladesh as a migrant sending country, with particular emphasis on contract labor migration and the policy challenges that it poses for the Bangladesh state.

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