Impact of Rural – Urban Migration in Bangladesh: The Case of Dhaka City Name: Khondokar Sabera Hamid United International University (UIU), Dhaka, Bangladesh. B angladesh. Master in Development Economics (MDS)
Abstract: The rapid growth of rural-urban migration (RUM) has been a common feature of the developing countries. There are various reasons for its occurrence and these reasons may vary from country to country. However, the consequences of this type of migration have similar effects for different countries. RUM is the most crucial component of internal migration of any country. It poses some problems in the rural as well as in the urban areas, even though there are benefits derived from it (Ullah, 2003). In recent years, most of the cities in Bangladesh are experiencing rapid urbanization and RUM is the most important factor behind it. Bangladesh is one of the highest rates of growth of urban population. According to UN projection, the size of the urban population will be about 100 million by the year 2025 (UNESCO, 2009). Millions of rural people are migrating to divisional cities of Bangladesh. Migration to Dhaka, the capital city of Bangladesh is the main focus of this paper. In this paper an attempt has been made to explore why a large number of people from rural Bangladesh are migrating to this city and what are the consequences of this movement on the physical and social environment of the city. Although the consequences of RUM are diverse and deep, both at the urban destination and at the rural origin, this study focuses only on the urban destination. d estination.
Key Words: Rural – Rural – Urban Urban Migration, Urbanization, Population Growth, Dhaka City,
Part- A Introduction: Many Third World cities lack sanitary y sewage disposal, and about 50% of the people do not have an adequate supply of drinking water. Furthermore, because most of these cities are in tropical countries, where population growth is most rapid, and public health issues are compounded. Bacteria thrive in temperatures of 75° Fahrenheit, or 24° Celsius and above. For them, it is like living in an incubator. Rural urban migration is the principle component of rapid and unplanned growth of towns and cities in the developing countries. Gross disparities in socio-economic opportunity between urban and rural areas and frequent natural disasters in some regions encourage large flow of migrants from rural Bangladesh to the large cities. For various reasons Dhaka is an attractive destination for the rural migrants. Migration to Dhaka, the capital city of Bangladesh, is the focus of this article which identifies the factors contributing to the migration process. The impact of migration is diverse both at the urban destination and at the rural origin. At both ends there are economic, demographic, environmental and socio-cultural impacts. This paper focuses on the urban end. It examines the overall conditions of the underprivileged, poor migrants and the consequences of migration on the physical and social environment on their choice of destination. At independence in 1971 Bangladesh emerged as a country of a large population (approximately 70 million) with a low level of urbanization. Only about 4 percent of its population po pulation lived in urban areas at that time. But a phenomenal growth in the urban population took place in the years following independence. The urban trend remains almost similar today. Urbanization in Bangladesh is characterized by the concentration of urban population in three major metropolitan areas, namely Dhaka, Chittagong and Khulna. The three cities together account for nearly 50 percent of the nation’s total urban population. This is a strong case of
three- city primacy in urban population distribution. Dhaka alone contains over one- third of the country’s total urban population. Dhaka maintained Dhaka maintained such single city primacy status for the last several decades and is likely to do so in the near or even distant future unless very radical programs are implemented for decentralized urbanization and reduction of the Dhaka- bound migration flow.
Rural to Urban Migration and Urbanization: There are some kinds of migration steam: rural-rural, rural-urban and urban – urban – rural. rural. Poor people move rural to rural res where agriculture work is available. But the main form migration in many developing countries is rural – urban urban migration, for example in Bangladesh two-thirds of all migration is rural to urban and this flow is increasing very rapidl y. Migration is broadly defined as a relocation of residence for a specified duration and various reasons (Hossain, 2001). Migration incorporates all kinds of movement of people from one place to another. It may take place within a particular geographical boundary of a country and then beyond its boundaries. RUM is the movement of people from the country side to the urban centre. Migration may be permanent in nature or it may be temporary. People may choose to migrate voluntarily or they may be forced into it. Both at the urban destination and at the rural origin there are demographic, economic, socio-cultural and environmental impacts of migration which is diverse and deep. Rural-urban migration is the movement of people from the countryside to the city. This causes two things to happen: 1. Urban growth - towns and cities are expanding, covering a greater area of land. 2. Urbanization - an increasing proportion of people living in towns and cities. Urbanization is a continuous process through which rural people’s life style is migrated t o industrial and commercial areas. Urbanization refers to the concentration of people in cities (many of the world's cities have populations of more than 5 million) and towns. A social trend in which people adapt to life styles, residential patterns and cultural values of those who live in or near cities. Urbanization is the process by which more and more people leave the countryside to live in cities (Cambridge Dictionary).
Urbanization generally refers to a process in which an increasing proportion of an entire population lives in cities and suburbs of cities. Historically, it has been closely connected with industrialization. Urbanization initiates industrialization-led economic growth and transition from
agricultural-based
income
and
employment
to
no-agriculture
based
livelihood
opportunities. Rapid urbanization causes shift in rural livelihood base and often result in migration of the farm laborers to off-farm activities in the cities. Thus urbanization, migration and development are inter-linked and the relationships between migration and urbanization, between urbanization and development and between migration and development develo pment are well known. The relationships are a two way phenomenon. With each pair one variable may be the cause as well as the effect of the other.
Benefits and Costs of Urbanization : Benefits: Economies of scale arise as a result of economic growth. When suppliers and consumers are in closer proximity to each other, this allows for savings in communications and transportation costs. Large cities also offer a variety of employment opportunities with higher wages, all of which may help accelerate the pace of technological innovation. Urban growth also allows governments to provide services such as sanitation, water supply, electricity, and transportation more efficiently.
Costs: Against these benefits, a major consequence of rural-urban migration is excessive urbanization. There is a very strong link between excessive urbanization and rural-urban migration. Migration has increased urban populations significantly over the years. A common view held by policymakers and economists in developing countries is that urban growth rates are excessive. This view is brought about by the large numbers of unemployed or underemployed young people in many Asian, African, and Latin American cities. Most economists however, believe that urbanization is an inevitable consequence of rural stagnation and successful economic development, not an undesirable force that must be suppressed. Migration instead should be recognized as an equilibrating equilibrating response to disequilibrium elsewhere in the economy. Excessive
urbanization leads to high rates of city congestion, crime and poor infrastructure such as proper sewage systems, clean drinking water and other amenities. There is also the problem of chronic unemployment which is also a key cause of crime, as people need to find ways of putting food on their tables. Excessive urbanization has brought with it the creation of large slums and shanty towns, as new migrants find it difficult to get proper housing. In developing countries, slum settlements represent over one-third of the urban population; in many cases they account for more than 60% of the urban total. The cost of travel associated with large cities begins to rise as urbanization becomes excessive, because congestion takes place which wastes resources such as time and fuel. The expansion of cities causes the cost of providing basic services to increase; as a result the quality and availability of existing services deteriorate rapidly. Excessive urbanization and the problems associated with it are all examples of negative externalities. Negative externalities lead to market inefficiency, which would cause market failure to occur. In the case of urbanization, market failure can come in the form of excessive urbanization, or city sizes that are above the socially desirable level. As the Economic Review states, this occurs because there is a divergence between social costs and private costs. This is shown in the figure below:
The Cost of Migration and Excessive Urbanization:
MSC Cost, Rev
MPC
Po
MPB Q*
Q o Size of cities
In the figure, marginal social cost (MSC) is above marginal private cost (MPC), because the true social cost is equal to the private cost plus the cost migration in excess has on a city by causing overcrowding to occur. Since marginal social cost is greater than the marginal private cost, this demonstrates that there is excessive migration. Potential migrants are faced with the choice of whether or not they should leave the rural areas for the cities. They will migrate as long as their benefits from migration exceed their costs. In other words they will migrate up to the point where marginal private cost (MPC) is equal to marginal private benefit (MPB). This point is not efficient because it takes place at Q0, while the efficient city size is Q*. The distance Q0-Q* represents the excessive urbanization that takes place or the degree to which cities are too big.
Factors of Rural to Urban Migration in Bangladesh: The factors of migration are characterized by two major categories - one is Pull and the other is Push. According to Braun (2004), people tend to be pulled to the areas of prosperity and pushed from the areas of decline. Push factors attribute to the negative characteristics operating at the centre of origin whereas pull factors identify the positive characteristics characteristics at the centre centre of destination destination (Dalta, (Dalta, 2002).
Actually, migration is the combined effect of both push and pull factors (Everett, 1996). Within Push-Pull Model push factors are operative at the rural end while pull factors are operative at the urban destination. Push factors push people toward the cities and pull factors attract them. Urban bias is held responsible for RUM (Han, 1999). RUM is a multi-causal phenomenon. It is usually compound by environmental, social, economic, political and other factors. Much of the literature on migration focuses on RUM as a result of environmental or economic crises. But a large proportion of RUM are due to marriage and other familial reasons (loses of husband, divorce, joining family/relatives etc). The following table summarizes the findings of several studies (Islam, 1999; Ullah, 2003; Haider, 2010) on factors of rural migration to urban Bangladesh. •
People move because they think life will be better in Urban areas
•
There will be factors which PUSH them from where the y live now (RURAL ORIGIN)
•
PULL them to a new place (URBAN DESTINATION)
Table: Push and pull factors of RUM in Bangladesh:
Push Factors
Landlessness Adverse person to to land ratio Frequent and severe natural disasters (drought, flood, monga, river bank erosion)
Homelessness
Loss of income sources
Unemployment and poverty
Absence of industries industries
Pull Factors
Job/Earning opportunities
Easy access to informal sector
Law and order situation Village politics Lack of social and cultural opportunities (education, health care, recreational facilities) Do not like village (particularly rural rich)
Higher incomes/Rural-urban wage differentials Rural urban disparities in social amenities and services (education, health care, recreation) Positive information about the city (garments factory jobs)
Better livelihood
Fast and colorful life in city
Joining families/relatives
Willingness to change and see new places
Reasons behind Dhaka bound Migration Flow: For the millions of rural poor in Bangladesh, Dhaka is an attractive destination. Migrants in Dhaka predominantly come from the Northern and Southern parts of the country. Comilla, Sherpur and Barisal are the top three districts from where rural urban migrants predominantly come (Ishtiaque and Mahmud, 2011). Compared to any other place in the country, Dhaka offers the best chance for economic opportunity. Administrative headquarters and civil employments, financial and banking services, international commerce and business are all largely concentrated in Dhaka (Islam, 1999). More than 80 percent of the garment industries of Bangladesh are located here. With these industries a large number of young female came to Dhaka. Despite the growth of formal sector industrial and other employment, Dhaka is dominated by the presence of a huge hu ge informal sector of economic activities. It has been b een estimated that about 65% 6 5% of all employment in the city is in the informal sector (World Bank, 1999).Work in the informal sector has a potential role in influencing RUM. Many migrants seek opportunities in the informal sector and make their living. Here a large number of people are involved with the informal economy of rickshaw pulling, hawker, roadside business, junk collecting etc. Others find jobs as drivers, mechanics, carpenters, barbers, daily laborers and personal servants. Anyone can make some kind of living in Dhaka. Various economic activities and variety of services tend to support a continuous influx of migration in the city. A large segment of the migrant population tends to be uneducated, unskilled and ill equipped for the city. Yet they the y migrate with expectations of a better life in the metropolis. The migrants carry with them the hope and dream of better living and livelihood. They come to the city to fulfill their needs and desire which cannot be fulfilled in the rural areas as rural Bangladesh lack opportunities. Migrants are usually concerned with the benefits they hope to gain by moving and usually give less thought to the problems that they will incur as a result of the process.
Origin of the Migrants: Dhaka is the prime focus of Bangladesh. It is considered as the nucleus of the country. It is not surprising; therefore, that Dhaka is always the first choice for rural-urban migrants. Bangladesh consists of 64 districts wherein the two largest slums of Bangladesh have migrants from 40 districts. Comilla, Sherpur and Barisal are the top three districts from where rural-urban migrants predominantly come. Migrants come both from northern and southern Bangladesh. Chittagong is the second largest city of Bangladesh and is known as the ‘port city’. Chittagong city’. Chittagong play playss an impo imporrtant ant role in ser serving ving the the rural ural--urba urban n migr igrants ants of neig neighb hbo oring ing dis district icts.Sylhet is also a rich divisional city and it also serves its surrounding districts. That is why people of north-eastern and south-eastern districts generally feel no pull from Dhaka. In the case of the northern and southern parts, there are three big cities- Rajshahi, Khulna and Barisal. These cities lack employment opportunities and financial dynamism. For this reason people from their surrounding districts prefer to go to Dhaka than to them.
Impact of Migration: The overall physical environment in an urban area is determined by some specific facilities such as housing, sanitation, sewerage, drainage, drinking w ater supply, gas supply, electricity, garbage disposal and waste management. In Dhaka city these services are extremely unsatisfactory and of poor quality, which is due to rapid increase of urban population (in-migration of the rural poor to Dhaka city) and limitation of resources. There is a chronic shortage of housing, congestion in public transport, acute crisis in supply of water, gas and electricity. Increasing pressure of population upon up on the civic amenities has resulted in air, water, noise pollution and an increase in urban crimes. The city is characterized by high level of poverty and social vulnerability, shortage of housing, infrastructure and social services, poor quality of physical and social environment and inefficient urban management (Hossain, 2006). The impacts of migration are:
1. Shortage of housing facilities and squatter settlements: Shortage of housing is quite acute as the prevailing situation fails to accommodate the rapidly growing city population. As a result slums and squatter settlements are widespread in different
areas of Dhaka city. It has been reported that, all the thanas of Dhaka Metropolitan area have slum population. Slums and squatter settlements have mostly developed in the peripheral thanas of Mirpur, Mohammadpur and Demra (Hossain, 2008). Actually, most of the slums of Dhaka are composed of rural migrants from various regions of the country. They come to the city in search of jobs, in most cases for the sake of survival and find themselves shelter less. This situation compels them to live in slums. Dhaka alone contains about 3.4 million people in 4966 slums. (Ishtiaque and Mahmud, 2011). The population density of the slums is extremely high. Most of the slums and squatters have a single room for the whole family that makes them highly congested and unhealthy. unhealth y. Slums dwellings in Dhaka can be found in such low laying areas as ditch embankments and on the edges of lakes, rivers, sewers and near the road side and railway line. Most of the slums have temporary structure with semi-permanent building materials (thatch, bamboo, wood, straw and scraps). The practical situation of all these settlements indicates a dreadful life with poor lighting and ventilation. Due to the location and the forms of these houses basic services and amenities cannot be provided in these houses. This poor housing, lifestyle and dwellers activities are creating not only environmental problems but also social crime. In many of the slums, overall conditions in housing service and health are worse than those in the rural areas. Indoor pollution, degradation of air quality, increase incidence of communicable diseases is attributable to this poor housing. The health conditions in slums are extremely bad b ad and hazardous for both bo th dwellers and other citizens. Fire is a common hazard in the city’s slum areas. Over the years, the situation is aggravating and it is becoming a threat for the serious environmental disaster of the city.
2. Delivering of basic services : Additional people have created tremendous pressure on the urban utility services. Dhaka city faces problems in almost all areas of its basic utility services.
2.1. Gas and electric supply: The slum dwellers do not have access to the gas supply. They use various traditional forms of fuel like wood, straw, cow dung and waste paper for cooking. Access to electricity is far from universal and sometimes access to these services is accomplished throu gh illegal means.
2.2. Water supply and sanitation facility: In Dhaka 49% of the population have access to piped water supply and the remaining have to depend on private hand pumps and unspecified unspecified sources. People living in slums do not have access to piped water. Piped water is unsafe to drink directly. Inadequate safe drinking water increases health risks. Only a small portion of the city dwellers have access to sewerage system. None of the slums get proper sewerage service from Dhaka Water and Sewerage Authority (DWASA). A large number of people use open space, ditches and drains for defecation. Particularly the slum poor have no proper fixed toilets.
2.3. Garbage disposal and waste management: There is no proper arrangement of collection and disposal of garbage. Garbage is usually dumped along the road corner, open areas, unused lands, and ditches into nearest water bodies. Only 9% of the slum population manages to get solid waste management services serv ices (IOM, 2010). As a result both household waste and human generated wastes go directly or indirectly into the low lying lands, open spaces or water w ater bodies of the city and causes a number of environmental and health problems.
2.4. Drainage facilities: Poor drainage system brings sufferings to the city dwellers. All areas of Dhaka experience rain water stagnation. The situation becomes worse during flood. The flood water submerges and quickly destroys the low lying and slum areas.
3. Urban poverty: Dhaka city has a dichotomous reality. It is a place of deprivation and plenty, growth and congestion, poverty and wealth. There is a sharp contrast between the rich and the poor. The incidence of urban poverty resulting from rapid urban growth is indicated by the proportion of slum dwellers in Dhaka who live below the poverty line. High density of population makes the environment of the slums more than abominable.
Aiming to get a better job, thousands of extreme poor migrated to the urban centers to improve their lives and after dashing their hopes they take shelters in slums, the ultimate destination for rural poor in urban lives. Urban population is growing at an estimated 3.7 percent per year in Bangladesh and almost 68 million people, representing more than one third of the entire population, will live in urban areas by 2015, according to official estimation. About 35 percent of the population in the six largest cities live in slums, 20 and 23 percent of whom are poor and extreme poor, respectively. A recent international study showed that about 500,000 people every year move to the capital city Dhaka from coastal and rural areas.
4. Unemployment/informal Unemployment/informal sector activities: Most of the migrants involve themselves in the informal sector activities. People employed here get less monetary benefits. In many cases they adopt unfair means for livelihood like smuggling,
begging, drug trafficking, trafficking of women, prostitution etc (Nasir&Pervin, 1997).More often, the migrant may fail to get in town the appropriate job he wants. The long period of waiting for job increases his pecuniary cost and psychological tension. Often he ends up getting no job at all, and thus remains unemployed. What is worse, he may out of frustration choose criminal paths for making a living.
5. Anti – social social activities: Now Dhaka has emerged as a city of crime and insecurity. Among the many negative social consequences of migration are the increase in the incidence of crime and violence. Social unrest, theft, robbery, hijacking, kidnapping, murder, illegal rent or toll collection, frustration, drug addiction is prominent among the serious city problems.
Criminal and anti-social activities are found to be located especially within slums. Quarrel, Qu arrel, clash, conflict in the slums and squatter settlements is a regular phenomenon which creates noise and violence that disturbs the nearby city dwellers. Thus a healthy social environment in the city is being threatened.
6. Surviving Pattern of Women and Children Migrants in Urban Bangladesh: Migration is an important aspect of globalization and has implications on local, regional and international development. Women and children are vulnerable segments of population almost in every part of the world. It is also true for Bangladesh because of its social inequality, un favorable economic condition, political climate, joblessness etc. The large-scale migration of women and children to urban areas is not entirely a recent phenomenon, nor is it equally common in all parts of the world. In Bangladesh, landlessness and the modernization of the agricultural system, frequent natural calamities, as well as prevailing poverty and the scarcity of work in the villages forced many women and their families to migrate to the cities. The movement of entire poor nuclear families to the city opened up new opportunities for women to enter the cash-earning economy and to contribute to family income. Poor women’s participation in Dhaka’s informal economy is crucial to the survival of most of the poor households living in the slums and squatter areas of the city. Within nuclear families, very often, the household head’s income is not sufficient to maintain the entire family in the city. Hence, women have little choice but to involve themselves in some kind of income-earning work, and this work has a vital role in the initial stages of urban adaptation.
Surviving Pattern of Women Migrants : Women’s movement to Dhaka has opened up new opportunities for them to enter the cashcashearning economy and address poverty. Poor women have always been active participants in the rural agricultural economy, earning some cash but mostly receiving payments in kind for their families. Although seasonal fluctuations affected the demand for female labor in the agricultural economy, the lack of work outside the agricultural seasons and the deteriorating economic conditions in the villages in recent years have led women to follow the household head to urban destinations. The demand for poor women’s work is ever present in Dhaka. To ensure the
survival of the family, they have little choice but to undertake wage-earning activities of various kinds. Many of the migrant families are composed of a very young population and the household head’s income is generally inadequate for maintaining the entire family. Although earning cash for the family is vital, the lack of education among women, which is more prevalent than among men, restricts them when choosing or competing for wage-earning activities. They also have to combine income-earning activities with their responsibilities for household work and child care. As a result, many of these women are limited to part-time or self-employed home based work for which they may not earn as much as those who work full-time outside their homes. Migration affects women in different aspects depending on the category to which the women belong such as - Married women who migrate along with their hu sbands - Unmarried women who migrate alone or with other unmarried girls - Married women who stay back while the husbands migrate (both short term or long term) - Women who have migrated in the past but are back now to their own village - Old women Issues that affect women in the context of migration - Low wages - Nonpayment of wages - Gender disparity in wages - Forced sex work & trafficking - Violence, domestic violence - Exploitation of single women - Lack of education & neglect of children’s education - Lack of health services for self as well as c hildren - Reproductive health issues - Lack of identity papers
- Breakdown of social network such as self h elp groups in the destination - Social exclusion - Non application of registration of birth and marriages - Food insecurity & malnutrition - No legal mechanism for protection - No awareness on rights and facilities of protection
Surviving Pattern of Children Migrants: Migration of rural children is an increasing phenomenon in Bangladesh. It is mainly because of unbalanced development between city and village, growing unemployment or under employment, landlessness and lack of opportunities in the villages. Most of them come from underprivileged families and their family backgrounds are broken and standard of living is low.
Causes of migration of Children from Rural to Urban Areas: Major Causes 1. Poverty
Attributes
2.Unemployment
3.Family conflict
4.Village conflict
5.Others
Landless Natural disaster Lack of food and shelter To support family Jobs are not available in rural areas Parents send searching for job Seeking opportunities in the city Father drove children out of home Father abandoned mother Torture by step father/mother Divorce between parents Parents disappearance Conflict with influential neighbor Oppressing by local elites Voluntary migration Influenced by others.
The migration of children to the street is the result of extreme poverty where basic needs of social security are not met within the household. They survive abuse at home and from other street children, live in poverty- afflicted, chaotic neighborhoods and have almost no access
educational and health services. They become vulnerable to drug use and being trafficked. Almost every day they confront risks of being tortured, beaten, trafficked and coerced into sexual exploitation and substance abuse.
Low Education
Health Problem
Excessive Work Load Acceptance of Exploitation as a Coping Strategy
Low Income
Involve in Illegal Activities
Low Skill
Child labor is a major social problem found in most of the developing countries throughout the world. But it may be said that the way most of the children are made neglected, deprived, exploited and oppressed in Bangladesh is probably unparalleled in the world. There is another important aspect of child labor in our country is that the suffering of the girl children here is beyond anybody’s imagination. A girl child is always expected to do domestic works without
taking into account her rights which she is supposed to exercise. Child labor could be of two types in Bangladesh: working and street children. The working children usually stay along with their parents or other guardians during the night. On the other hand, most of the street children do not have permanent address and their employment depends on the availability of works. These children mostly pass night on the street itself or some other place which does not belong to them. Street children may be described as homeless having no local guardians or some of them might have fled away from home. Rahman (1997) shows that urban child workers are worst hit of the situation. Urban child worker are engaged in around 300 types of economic activities and on the other hand rural child workers in 90 types of agricultural and non-agricultural activities (Islam, 1998). Children are forced to work in order to extend financial help to their family and sometimes, of course their own survival. The situation of urban children has worsened because of decline of the traditional society, growing industrialization and urbanization, and the migration that is heavily taking place mostly from rural to urban areas.
Part- B Rural to Urban Migration and Unsustainability: Rural urban migration is the principle component of rapid and unplanned growth of towns and cities in the developing countries. Gross disparities in socio-economic opportunity between urban and rural areas and frequent natural disasters in some regions encourage large flow of migrants from rural Bangladesh to the large cities. For various reasons Dhaka is an attractive destination for the rural migrants. Migration to Dhaka, the capital c ity of Bangladesh, is the focus of this article which identifies the factors contributing to the migration process. The impact of migration is diverse both at the urban destination and at the rural origin. At both ends there are economic, environmental and socio-cultural impacts. The overall physical environment in an urban area is determined by some specific facilities such as housing, sanitation, sewerage, drainage, drinking w ater supply, gas supply, electricity, garbage disposal and waste management. In Dhaka city these services are extremely unsatisfactory and of
poor quality, which is due to rapid increase of urban population (in-migration of the rural poor to Dhaka city) and limitation of resources. There is a chronic shortage of housing, congestion in public transport, acute crisis in supply of water, gas and electricity. Increasing pressure of population upon up on the civic amenities has resulted in air, water, noise pollution and an increase in urban crimes. The city is characterized by high level of poverty and social vulnerability, shortage of housing, infrastructure and social services, poor quality of physical and social environment and inefficient urban management. Economic
Consequences of Rural to Urban Migration in Bangladesh
Social Environmental
Economic Impact: Despite the fact that the overall poverty situation in the country has improved over the years, Dhaka City’s situation has become worse in terms of both upper and lower poverty lines through the accelerating rate of rural-urban migration of the rural poor. Poverty in Dhaka City is clearly seen in patterns of income, consum ption and household assets. Dhaka city has a dichotomous reality. It is a place of deprivation and plenty, growth and congestion, poverty and wealth. There is a sharp contrast between the rich and the poor. The incidence of urban poverty resulting from rapid urban growth is indicated by the proportion of slum dwellers in Dhaka who live below the poverty line.
More often, the migrant may fail to get in town the appropriate job he wants. The long period of waiting for job increases his pecuniary cost and psychological tension. Often he ends up getting no job at all, and thus remains unemployed.
Poor people are involved in low paid jobs and they have insufficient earnings to support their livelihoods. Almost half of the poor households households of Dhaka’s slums are hardcore poor – whose whose monthly household income is insufficient for their basic needs. Consequently their low level of earning means the expenditure level is also low. The hardcore poor spend the majority of their earnings on food. As a result, essential non-food items like health and education are often neglected. In contrast, the absolute poor can afford to spend part of their earnings on non-food items. The urban poor usually buy food items at a low cost and generally avoid costly items. Chronic malnutrition and poor health is the result of deprivation of such necessary food items over a long period of time. Furthermore, the urban poor lack of access to formal sources of credit and other resources and are consequently usually forced to seek credit from informal sources. In fact, a low level of household assets is usually paralleled by a high level of deprivation caused by poverty including disease, hunger, malnutrition and lack of income.
Malnutrition
Reduce Physical
Poverty
Strength
Loss of Work
Loss of Income
Loss of Productivity
Working and street children of our country are mainly forced to take up some kind of job in order to survive. So it is extreme poverty which usually pushes our innocent children to work. Economic poverty has been presented both as a direct and indirect factor that pushes children onto the street. It is argued that children move out of the household as a direct coping strategy, to diversify the household’s portfolio of income generating activities, activities, and that at the same time, economic poverty leads to stresses and tensions within the household, that become an indirect cause of street migration. Poor children are in a vicious cycle of exploitation. It starts immediately after being employed and continue as long as they are involved. Children work in lieu of education condemns their life to poverty. If a child cannot study, then the cycle of poverty is repeated and s/he never gets out of the cycle. It is a life-long process from which other than very few none of the children can escape. The cycle follows the pattern:
Poverty Hard Labor Low Skill
Exploitation
Low Motivation
Low Consumption
Meager Income
Migration reduces the number of the young, able-bodied, and the relatively better educated people in the villages. A continuous movement of this category of people from villages to towns may cause an imbalance in the quality of human resources between rural and urban areas, which may eventually impede rural development.
Social Impact: The social consequences of rural to urban migration for the urban destination areas may be examined in terms of the effects on the degree of exposure of migrants to the city, the effects on the patterns of resocialization of migrants into the urban way of life, their acculturation and cultural transformation, the effects of rural to urban migration on the location and adjustment of migrants into the urban social setting and the effects on the nature of interaction between the migrants, the overcrowding of migrants and its impact on urban employment. Migration is a function of certain objective social conditions operating at the rural source and at the urban destination. Those conditions are generally referred to as rural push and urban pull factors of migration. The interplay of these push – push – pull factor plays an important role in determining the flow of out or in migration. Migration is both a separative and additive process. It separates people from the place of origin and adds them to the place of destination. These functions of migration have important social consequences. The immediate effect of migration is the separation of individual migrants from the origin areas. One consequences of rural to urban migration is overcrowding. If migration takes place too quickly or unexpectedly, the planning necessary to accommodate growth will not be in place. Overcrowding leads to issues such as higher rents, traffic and pressure on resources such as schools and medical centers. Urban pressures weaken traditional family values and social control over children. Schools are not always available which further breeds vicious cycle of disparity. Interaction between children and parents, recreation and cultural stimulation are all lacking.
The growth in the working population will also mean more competition for jobs. The lack of jobs may lead to problems of vagrancy, prostitution and unfair treatment to the least skilled workers in the workforce. Addressing the challenges in spite of their vital contribution to the city's economy, the urban poor do not receive the benefits of city life. Their isolation is manifested in slums, which are a reflection of inequality and soci al exclusion in urban areas.
The major problematic areas of urban amenities were identified as electricity, housing, transportation and gas. Irrationally high rent for the house, owner’s monopoly to raise the house-rent and lack of rental house for unmarried persons were identified the main problems in the housing sector. The main problems in the transportation sector were identified as traffic-jam, lack of vehicle and insufficient road. If a country is advanced in infrastructure and basic social amenities, there is no point to classify it as developing. To this point, it is common to see most developing countries having limited social amenities and infrastructure. This may include schools, roads, places of convenience, pipe borne water among others. As people troop from the rural to the urban, they increase the usage of these limited amenities in the urban areas. This leads to massive and quick deterioration of the amenities and hence an increase in the cost of repairs and maintenance and thus government expenditure. The Increase in the population in the urban areas relative to a constant land area leads to overcrowding at a particular area and most specially the urban areas.
The dream of a better quality of life is being undermined by an increasing menace of urban violence. There is hardly anyone who somehow or the other have not been affected by violent acts. Violence ranges from street crime, such as muggings, mobile snatching, robberies, and carjacking; to kidnappings, murder, drug-related violence, and organized crime conducted by gangs; to assaults, sexual violence, and personal abuse. Exposure to violence is psychologically traumatic and damaging. It inhibits productivity and creativity of the individuals by inducing the state of learned helplessness and hopelessness, which is ultimately affecting the collective growth of the society.
Environmental Impact:
Urbanization in Bangladesh is facing a crisis. The capital city-centric development strategy has led to an explosion of Dhaka city’s size, without corresponding expansion of the infrastructure. As a result, basic urban utilities are now in acute shortage. Greenery and water bodies are disappearing and slums have spread beside high rise buildings. Horrific traffic jam is bringing life to a standstill, imposing huge costs on the economy. The environmental condition of Dhaka has deteriorated significantly. Dhaka is a city of noise, air and water pollution. The rivers of Dhaka city (Buriganga, Balu, Turag and Tangi khal) are already polluted. The rivers are becoming dead due to the illegal occupation of the people. Almost everywhere the air is polluted. po lluted. Air pollution po llution in all indicators in Dhaka is one of the highest in the world (Islam, 1999). There is also high level of noise pollution. Massive traffic congestions have become regular feature of the city which leads to noise and air pollution.
Uncollected
garbage
increases
in
noxious
odor. Noise,
overcrowding,
inappropriate design, and stresses contribute to the growing psychosocial health problems of many urban dwellers in developing countries, especially adolescents and young adults. Common chemical pollutants in urban areas are lead, indoor air pollutants from fuel combustion, toxic hazardous wastes, and ambient air pollution. A shortage of fresh water is often why some urban households do not have a safe and adequate water supply. Pollution has become a serious threat. The air quality remains dangerously poor. Household, medical, and electronic wastes are increasing in volume and worsening in composition. Untreated sewerage contaminates neighboring rivers unceasingly. Lacking Effluent Treatment Plants (ETP), most industrial enterprises are dumping their toxic effluents into neighboring water bodies and rivers.
Some people ‘co‘co-exist with garbage’ in the city. Land is a scarce commodity in the city. More than 70% of the city’s population population has no access to land. The price of land in the city is beyond the ability of the common people. Land filling is a very common practice in the city especially to mitigate the land pressure. Traditionally solid wastes have been used as a convenient way to infill land. Domestic and toxic waste are not always treated separately and
often dumped together in the same site. This creates a lot of environmental hazards in Dhaka city (Ahmed, 1996).
Deforestation, cutting down of trees, encroachment and filling of water bodies are caused mainly by overpopulation. This has resulted in an adverse effect on the environment of the city. The environment of the city is physically and socially lacking because an adequate proportion of its land has not been put aside as open space. Some of the th e open spaces, such as parks, are being constantly encroached on by land grabbers with the support of those in power. Also, the increasing presence of anti-social elements in the places (particularly in parks and cinema halls) poses a serious threat to their proper use by citizens (Siddqui et al., 2000). Children’s are deprived of open playgrounds. Slum children have nothing but streets to play on. Environmental hazards in Dhaka mainly affect poor people especially women, children, and migrants -- the people who are least able to avoid the hazards and least able to deal with the illness or injury they cause. Poor people are priced out of safe, well located, well serviced housing and land sites. Hazards include biological pathogens; chemical pollutants; scarce, poor quality natural resources; physical hazards; natural resource degradation; and global environmental degradation. These preventable health burdens cause disease, accidents, and premature death. Biological pathogens have the most serious impact on human health. Crowded conditions, poor sanitation, and inadequate water supplies, poor facilities for preparing and storing food, and inadequate hygiene contribute to biological etiology of pathogen included ill health. Open space is used by the urban poor to tie up cattle owned by them. Sanitation is the most pressing issue in a majority of slums with situations varying from existence of individual toilets which lead into open drains to public toilet. Public toilets provided in slums suffer from lack of regular cleaning, rendering them unusable. Children defecate in drains in most slums. Drains are open and narrow, which remain blocked due to disposal of solid waste and absence of regular cleaning. In some areas of Bangladesh open spaces are used for sewage and garbage disposal, creating an extremely unhealthy environment.
Public taps and hand pumps provided in slums often dry up in summer, leaving residents dependent on groundwater for meeting their basic needs. Water quality is poor. At times residents access the drinking water by inserting pipes through the waste water itself. Slum children below two years of age are underweight, and some are severely underweight. underweight. Open space is used by the urban poor to tie up cattle owned by them. Sanitation is the most pressing issue in a majority of slums with situations varying from existence of individual toilets which lead into open drains to public toilet. Public toilets provided in slums suffer from lack of regular cleaning, rendering them unusable. Children defecate in drains in most slums. Drains are open and narrow, which remain blocked due to disposal of solid waste and absence of regular cleaning.
Part- C Sustainable Development & Policies
Sustainable Development: Sustainable development refers to development that meets the needs of the present generations without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs. In other words it's the use of renewable and non renewable resources in a manner that satisfies our current needs without jeopardizing future availability of resources. In 1986, IUCL and World Wild Life Fund Ottawa Declaration mentioned five conditions of sustainable development: 1. Unification of development and conservation, 2. Meet the basic needs of people, 3. Equity and social justice, 4. Social self-control and preserve cultural diversity, 5. Preserve ecological heritage.
Sustainable development has three dimensions: Economical
We should balance between three of these dimensions.
Environmental
Social
Economic dimension: Capital: produces a stream of goods and services into the future – Financial capital – Manufactured capital; durable capital – Human capital; stocks of learned skills – Intellectual capital; accumulation of knowledge and skills not embodied in individuals – Social capital; Set of institutions and customs – Natural capital; renewable and nonrenewable An economically sustainable system must be able to produce goods and services on a continuing basis, to maintain manageable size of government and external debt and to avoid sectoral imbalances (maintain diversity). The core idea of sustainability is that current decisions should not impair the prospects for maintaining or improving future living standards. This implies that our economic system should be managed so we can live off the dividends of our resources
Environmental dimension: Sustainable development is (1) development subject to a set of constraints which set resource harvest rates at levels not higher than managed natural regeneration rates and (2) use of the
environment as a waste sink on the basis that waste disposal rates should not exceed rates of managed or natural assimilative capacity of the ecosystem. ecosystem.
A stable resource base, do not
overwhelm neither the waste assimilative ability of the environment nor the regenerative services of the environment, deplete non-renewable only to the extent we invest in renewable substitutes. SD is about maintenance of essential ecological processes and life support systems, the preservation of genetic diversity and the sustainable utilization of species and ecosystems. ecosystems.
Social Dimension: Achieve distributional equity, adequate provision of social services including health and education, gender equity and political accountability and participation. SD is directly concerned with increasing the standard of living of the poor, which can be measured in terms of increased food, real income, education, health care, water supply, sanitation and only indirectly concerned with economic growth at the aggregate.
The principle: •
Protect the environment and at the same time fulfill economic and social objectives
•
Operational criteria: – Economic objectives should not be maximized without satisfying environmental and social constraints. – Environmental benefits should not be maximized without satisfying economic and social constraints. – Social benefits should not be maximized without satisfying economic and environmental constraints.
Policies to Improve the Unsustainability Caused by Rural to Urban Migration: To undertake the policy programme we should have a clear idea about the causes and consequences of the problem. The causes and effect of the focal problem (Rural to Urban Migration) is shown by a problem tree here.
Problem Tree: Hijack, Female Abuse
Child Abuse
Increase of
Snatch,
Diseases
Stealing Sharp Contrast
Air, Water &
between the Rich Unemployment
& the Poor in
Social Crime
Pollution
Urban Areas
Social Effect
Economic Effect
Deforestation
Sound
Rural to Urban Migration
Environmental Effect
Effects Focal Problem
Causes
Positive
Natural Disaster
Unemployment & Poverty
Information about the City
Homelessness
Loss of
Fewer Job
Lesser Financial
Opportunities
Resources for
Income
Earning
Better
in Rural Areas
Business in Rural
Sources
Opportunities
Livelihood
areas
•
Policies to Improve the Unsustainability Caused by Rural to Urban Migration :
Recommendation: •
Improve educational facilities for quality education in rural areas, which matches the skill needs of rural labor markets including vocational and training facilities.
•
Promote programs to enhance more and better opportunities for employment and entrepreneurship development in rural Bangladesh to provide alternatives to distress ruralurban migration, especially for youth.
•
The Government should also invest in better labor market information systems and job information services so that youth can access to better jobs and undertake migration in a more informed manner.
•
Actions to prevent and eradicate child labor, especially its most hazardous forms, with particular attention to unaccompanied child migrants.
•
Decentralize both administrative and developmental activities to discourage the concentration of rural-urban migration to capital city in particular and other big cities in general.
•
Local government should make proper arrangements for safety and security in rural areas for a sound environment to make rural stay hassle and anxiety free to discourage rural-urban migration and encourage reverse migration.
Conclusion: This study may help the planners and social scientists for implementing and extending the rural development programs and designing urban planning, as it gives an overview of the people involved in rural-urban migration process, identifies ide ntifies the determinants as well as root causes of migration, and find out the nature and extent of the problems faced by the migrants and urban people at destinations. In order to have a sound overall outcome and optimize the rural-urban migration process the study suggests some policy implications that include increasing the education facilities in the rural areas, particularly establishing the quality educational institutes; taking proper steps for the refugee migrants (affected by natural calamities such as river-erosion, drought, tidal bore, cyclones etc.) to direct them to rural-
rural regional migration instead of rural-urban migration; immediate actions are required to decentralize the administration, industrialization, commercialization to minimize the untoward rural-urban migration flow; undertaking motivational programs to motivate the corporate management to extend their CSR (corporate social responsibilities) facilities to the internal out-migration prone areas to facilitate local amenities for education, health and income generation in order to give the potential migrants incentives not to strive for internal migration; motivating the local industrialists, merchants, and other wealthier persons towards establishing different services-oriented institutes from the view-point of philanthropy or trusteeship rather than profit and income generating SMEs in rural areas to lure the would-be migrants for retention as well as the retired persons for reverse migration (urban-rural); establishing SMEs in rural areas through Public Private Partnership (PPP) with the solvent returned international migrants using foreign remittances to enlarge income generating facilities for an optimal migration process; and urban facilities should be increased keeping pace with the level of migrants and hence henc e future urbanization should be well-planned well -planned in and around the growing towns and cities in order to ameliorate the inconveniencies of the already as well as inevitably potential migrants at the destination places. Finally, to optimize the internal migration and its outcome in Bangladesh through discouraging the rural-urban migration flow and encouraging the urban-rural migration flow, overall infrastructural facilities, both social and physical, must deserve to be increased to provide amenities for living a sound human life in rural areas.
References: From different books and publications related to migration problems...pictures are taken from different websites..
