Definition of Migration, Its types and Importance of migration in Bangladesh

Definition of Migration, Its types and Importance of migration in Bangladesh

Introduction:

Migration and emigration from Bangladesh is a regular phenomenon. Bangladesh like other South-Asian countries is in a situation of surplus manpower with a combination of professional, skilled, semi-skilled and less-skilled labor force. Local wage employment cannot absorb the huge low skilled and less educated workforce. Migration plays a vital role in the national economy mainly in two major ways; firstly it reduces unemployment and secondly migration results in remittance flows for the country. The migration has shown steady growth over the year that is favorable to the development of Bangladesh; as inflow of remittance has increased every year. 

The links between migration and remittances are self-evident. Both have a strong co-relation to poverty reduction in home countries. Remittance has become an important aspect for the developing countries like Bangladesh for socio- economic advancement.

Concept of Migration:

Migration has come from a Latin word “migrationem” The inner meaning of Migration is "to move from one place to another.

In the 1690 to 1700  the word migration has come a Latin word migrātus, past participle of migrāre.  The meaning of  this word is “move from place to place, change position”.

• Migration means movement of people to a new area or country in order to find work or better living conditions.
•  Migration denotes movement from one part of something to another: 
•  It also refers move people from one country, place, or locality to another.
•  Another meaning of Migration is“pass usually periodically from one region or climate to another for feeding or breeding”.
•  Migration means change position or location in an organism or substance

Definition of Migration: 

1.  Migration is the movement of people from one place to another because of push and pull factors.
2. Movement of a person from one country, of a substance from one medium, or of data from one format, platform, or system, to another
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4. According to Wikipedia, migration is the movement by people from one place to another with the intentions of settling, permanently in the new location. The movement is often over long distances and from one country to another.
5. Migration is a movement from one site to another in a host organism especially as part of a life cycle
6. Migration refer to moving from one country or region to another. migrate means to make such a move either once or repeatedly; it is applied to both people and animals.
7. Migration is the process of moving from one operating environment into another operating environment to upgrade applications, software and hardware.

Definition of International Migration:

• The term international labor migration is defined as the voluntary movement of people from one country to another for a certain period of time to achieve a better life or to earn a better livelihood.
• International migration is when people migrate from one country to another - for example, moving from Mexico to the USA.
•   International migration is a global phenomenon that is growing in scope, complexity and impact. Migration is both a cause and effect of broader development processes and an intrinsic feature of our ever globalizing world.

Generally, the following factors are responsible for migration:

1. Economic and Technical Causes:

They relate to the changes occurring in the technique of production, in methods and structure of agricultural operations, in market structure, in price situation, in specialisation, in production, and in relative changes in the wage level, etc.

2. Social Causes:

The social causes are development of institutional structure, policies regarding public land and production, development of transport and communication systems, population growth, increase in knowledge and its expansion, class-conflicts and competition, disarrangement coming in social degradation and structure of administration, changing needs of maintenance of family, etc.

3. Personal Causes:

In personal causes are included unsatisfied needs, increase in the intelligence of persons and expanding horizon of knowledge, health, emotions of alieanation, views regarding neighbours, imagination power, nature, emotions, etc.

4. Natural Causes:

The natural causes pertain to environment and atmosphere, frequent existence of diseases, floods, earthquake, droughts, malaria, hookwarm, seasonal changes, land erosion, etc.

5. Other Causes:

There are some miscellaneous causes which affect migration. They are labour problems, strikes, riots, increase in real wealth, search of new means or ending up of the supply of old resources, etc.

Characteristics of migrants:

(1) Migration is selective.

(2) Migrants who respond primarily to plus factors at destination tend to be positively selective.

(3) Migrants who respond primarily to minus factors at origin tend to be negatively selective, or where they are overwhelming for the entire group, they may not be selective at all for migration.

(4) When all migrants are considered together selection for migration tends to be bimodel.

(5) The degree of positive selection increases with the difficulties of intervening obstacles.

(6) The characteristics of migrants tend to be intermediate between the characteristics of the population of the place of origin and those of place of destination.

(7) The higher propensity to migrate at certain stages of the life-cycle is important in the selection of migrants.

Types of migration:

v  Internal Migration – It is the moving within a state, country, or continent.

v  External Migration – It is the moving in a different state, country, or continent.

v  Emigration  – It is the leaving of one’s country to move to another. (Ex. Leaving Philippines for United States)

v  Immigration – It is the moving in from a country to a new one. (See what is migration?)

v  Population Transfer – It is when a government pushed or forces a large group of people out of a country or region.  This is usually based on ethnicity or religion.  It is also otherwise known as an forced migration or involuntary migration.

v  Impelled Migration – It is also called an imposed migration or reluctant migration.  A group of people or an individual leaves a country or region because of unfavorable situations due to political, religious, social factors.

v  Step Migration – It is a progressive step by step migration from a shorter distance to a rather farther destination in the end.  (Ex. from city to province to capital to abroad, out of the country.)

v  Chain Migration – It is a series or connection of migration within a family or a defined group of people like ethnicity.  It begins with one individual who brings in other family members after sometime. (Ex. Chinatowns)

v  Intercontinental – It is the movement of people between continents. (ex. Philippines to United States)

v  Intra-continental -It is the movement of people between countries on a given continent. (ex. Philippines to Singapore)

v  Interregional – It is the movement of people within countries.  It is domestic in nature that is migration from rural to urban and vice versa.  This is usually the movement of people from the countryside to cities in search of opportunities. (Ex. Cebu Philippines to Manila Philippines)

v  Rural-Urban Migration: It is usually an interregional migration with a specific origin that is from the countrysides or rural areas to a specific destinations which is the urban areas of the country.  The purpose is usually to find a greener pasture or to find better opportunities to make money.  (ex. Argao to Cebu City)

v  Seasonal Migration – This is usually due to climate or planting reasons.  People in the past move from one place to another for the purpose of crop planting and harvesting.  At present, people move from one place to the other because of climate.  Some retirees move from one place to the other during winter season.

v  Return Migration – Some people returns to the country or place of origin after outliving the reasons for which they left in the first place.  Many young Filipinos move to United States to find a better place to earn a living.  Ultimately as they retire, they sometimes tend to retire in the Philippines because of their attachments to family and friends perhaps.

v  Economic Migrants :Economic migration is the movement of people from one country to another to benefit from greater economic opportunities. It is often assumed that such migration is primarily from less economically developed countries to the more economically developed countries and from former colonies to the country that was the imperial power.

v  Political Migrants: Many people are forced to migrate because of a war, civil war or state policies which discriminate against particular groups of citizens or people who oppose those in power. These people are unable to return home because they have fears of being persecuted and are unlikely to receive any protection from their government.

v  Environmental Migrants :Environmental migrants are people who are forced to migrate from or flee their home region due to sudden or long-term changes to their local environment which adversely affects their well being or livelihood

v  Intercontinental migration:  It is when the movement is across continents, such as from Korea (Asia) to Brazil (South America). If the movement is on the same continent, we say intracontinental migration. Sometimes, people migrate from one place to the other within the same region, continent or country. This is also known as regional migration or internal migration.

v  Rural-Urban Migration:  This involves the movement of people from rural areas or countrysides to urban areas of the same country in search of new opportunities and lifestyles.

v  Forced or involuntary Migration:This is when the government or authorities of a place force people to migrate for a reason.

v  Impelled Migration (also called reluctant or imposed migration):  Here, no one is forced to migrate but due to some push factors such as war, hunger and other difficult conditions, people decide to leave.

v  Seasonal Migration: Sometimes people move during specific seasons such as crop harvesting and climate to work and then go back when the season is over.

v  Return Migration: This involves the voluntary return of migrants to their original place after they outlive the reasons for which they left. Often times, young people who move into the cities to work return home when they retire to spend the rest of their lives in the quiet of their towns and with old friends and family.

v  Long and short-term migration: People may consider migrating for good if the condition in their home is one that is threatening. For example, people move for better health care if they have some disease that requires some level of attention that can only be received in another place. On the other hand, it may be temporal in nature. For example, a person may study in another place, but may decide to stay and work for many years before going back for good.

These factors are given below:..

1)      Natural factors:  Natural disasters are a common feature in Bangladesh. Manga is one of them and affects millions of people especially in Northern part of Bangladesh. Manga is a cyclical food insecurity which occurs during the lean season and it directly affects those who are involved in agricultural activities. The agriculture in ‘the manga regions’ is mainly based on paddy cultivation. The employment opportunities for agricultural day-laborers, therefore, mainly depend on seasonal labor requirements for this crop. In between transplantation and harvest little labor is needed and as a result the income of day-laborers is low.

2)      Political factors: During the time of research we came to know that some migrant families go to different countries in 1947, some in 1971 and some after 1971. Generally some communities of different religions of the west Bengal were living in India and they migrated (illegally crossing the river and by land route) to Bangladesh. Because they were the victims of different kinds of political torture, disparity etc. and now they are living in many countries. In our research we found that 4 percent poor migrants have came from India by crossing the border.

3)      Social factors:In the study area 4.8 percent of the poor migration has occurred only in big families and their family member ranges between 5 and 8 so that they could not manage sufficient food for their family members. In case of poverty, 5 percent of poor migrant come to city. It is also interesting to note that the number of female children is higher than the male child in the poor families. Socially, it is an additional burden for them. So the poor families remain very anxious for the marriage of their daughters and want to reduce the number of family members through marriage. In this case we found 4 percent poor women who have migrated for reasons of marriage.

Economic factors: In explaining the economic condition of a poor family, the monthly income, owned cultivable land and profession are the important factors for migration. Economic activities and income in a rural society mainly depends on cultivable lands. In this study we found that poverty and unemployment are the factors to push them to the city. Poverty works as the main factor of every step of it. When there is no work and the stomach is empty, man tries his best to survive. Similarly when the poor people fail to feed their family in their native villages, they have to see the hungry faces of their.

Push Factors:

• Not enough jobs
• Few opportunities
• Inadequate conditions
• Desertification
• Famine or drought
• Political fear or persecution
• Slavery or forced labor
• Poor medical care
• Loss of wealth
• Natural disasters
• Death threats
• Desire for more political or religious freedom
• Pollution
• Poor housing
• Landlord/tenant issues
• Bullying
• Mentality
• Discrimination
• Poor chances of marrying
• Condemned housing (radon gas, etc.)
• War

Pull Factors

• Job opportunities
• Better living conditions
• The feeling of having more political or religious freedom
• Enjoyment
• Education
• Better medical care
• Attractive climates
• Security
• Family links
• Industry
• Better chances of marrying

Cause of migration:

• Environmental – Better climate, calamities, and natural disasters are examples of environmental causes or reasons.
• Economic – Moving to find work or moving to follow a particular career path is an example of economic cause or reason.
• Cultural – Religious freedom and education is an example of cultural cause or reason.
• Political – Civil war or escaping from political persecution is an example of political cause or reason.
• Social – Moving for a better quality of life or moving closer to a family member or friend is an example of a social cause or reason.

Why do people migrate?

Yes, we know that people migrate because of those 5 basic reasons.  However, we often fail to realize their perspective in coming into a decision to migrate:

• Given the 5 basic causes or reasons for migration, people think of the pros and cons, the advantages and disadvantages of moving or staying.
• People also think not only of the opportunity and the actual conditions of that new location, but also of the opportunities nearby which are attractive.
• There are also factors that they need to consider as well as the travel costs, the travel time and distance, the mode of transportation and terrain, and lastly, yet not the least, the cultural barriers and biases.