The government of Bangladesh has taken some policies regarding rural-urban migration but the issues in rural and urban areas have not been considered. The policies are only for the urban formal sector. However, rural-urban migration is considered as the survival strategy and informal sector of Dhaka city is considered as the livelihood opportunity for the rural poor people.

2. METHODOLOGY OF THE STUDY:

This study has been conducted by the secondary source of data. Secondary data and information have been collected from articles, books, newspapers and internet sources. For the purpose of this study, some theoretical literatures have been reviewed.

3. CONCEPT OF MIGRATION, RURAL-URBAN MIGRATION AND INFORMAL SECTOR:

Migration is the relocation of living place and workplace at the same time. When it happens from rural to urban area it is called rural-urban migration. Various terminologies have been developed by scholars and researchers and criteria such as space, time and purpose of movement have been considered to define the concept of migration or rural-urban migration. Peterson (1958) developed a classification of migration in which he tried to distinguish between migration as a mechanism of changing the way of life as well as preserving it. According to his classification, a migration typology is distinguishable by i.e. temporary and permanent, distance i.e. short and long, boundaries such as internal and international, involvement of areal units such as communities, countries, states etc., decision making such as voluntary or forced, numbers such as mass or individual, political such as free or sponsored, causes such as economic and non-economic, aims such as innovative and conservative. Hagerstand defines ‘migration as a change of home and workplace at the same time’. The United Nations has defined migration as ‘the change of residence from one civil division to another for a period of one year or more’ (4). Finally, rural-urban migration is a state when the way of life of the people is changed by changing the residence from rural to urban area within a country.

Informal sector is conceptually defined to include all economic activities which are not officially recognized and regulated and which operate outside the incentive system offered by the government and its institutions. It is also called the urban subsistence sector or unorganized sector or unenumerated sector (3). The informal sector or informal economy is that part of an economy that is not taxed, monitored by any form of government, or included in any gross national product (GNP), unlike the formal economy (5). The informal sector is also characterized by a large number of small scale production and service activities that are individually or family owned and uses labour intensive and simple technology. The people of informal sector are engaged in some types of activities such as hawking, street vending, letter writing, knife sharpening, junk collecting etc. Most of the workers of informal sector are migrants from rural areas unable to find employment in the formal sector (6).

4. ISSUES IN RURAL AREAS:

Most of the rural people of Bangladesh live below poverty line. Most of them are illiterate or less educated. They are engaged in producing and managing crops and livestock. But they do not have adequate land to cultivate. Many of the rural poor people live in the areas that are prone to extreme annual draught, flooding, cyclone which cause huge damage to their crops, homes and livelihoods. In order to rebuild their homes, they often have to resort to moneylenders, NGOs etc. that bring deeper poverty. In addition, these natural disasters also cause outbreaks of cholera, typhoid and other waterborne and diarrhoeal diseases which affect them physically and make lower their productivity levels. Some major issues of rural areas of Bangladesh which force the rural poor people to migrate to urban areas especially to Dhaka city are discussed below:

4.1: Poverty

The population in Bangladesh is predominantly rural, with almost 80 percent of the population live in rural areas. Many people live in rural areas that lack of quality services such as education, health clinics, adequate roads etc. About 36 percent of the population in rural areas lives below the poverty line. They suffer from persistent food insecurity, inadequate land and assets etc. They are often uneducated and may also suffer from serious illnesses or disabilities. Another 29 percent of the rural population is considered moderately poor. Though they may own a small plot of land and some livestock and generally have enough to eat, their diets lack nutritional value. Women are among the poorest of the rural poor, especially when they are the sole heads of their households. They suffer from discrimination and have few earning opportunities and their nutritional intake is often inadequate (7).

4.2: Inadequate Job Opportunity

There are two sectors in job area. These are formal and informal sectors. Most of the rural people of Bangladesh are engaged in informal, low-income jobs with limited productivity. Most of them are involved in agricultural activities. However, because of rapid urbanization the amount of farmland is shrinking and high population growth creates enormous pressure on the country's natural resources – especially on arable land. That is why most of rural households do not acquire enough land and many have no land. So, they have little scope to work. In many cases they provide labor to others for both farm and nonfarm activities inside and outside their villages. But they cannot meet their demand by this way. In addition, floods, cyclones and drought damage the crops every year. So, people become hopeless. Meanwhile, few rural industries are unable to meet the demand for jobs and forcing many rural poor people to seek work in urban areas, especially in the Dhaka city (8).

4.3: Natural Disasters

Bangladesh is called as a land of natural disasters because she is attacked by different types of natural disasters almost every year. Every year some common natural disasters like floods, cyclones, landslides, tidal bores, earthquake and drought attack on Bangladesh. Among all the natural disasters, floods and cyclones are most common because of their regularity and destruction history. They visit especially in the rainy season (9). Bangladesh is particularly vulnerable to climate change. Two thirds of its territory is less than 5 meters above sea level, making it one of the most flood-prone countries in the world. Severe flooding during monsoons can cause significant damage to crops and property and an adverse impact on rural livelihoods. Climate change seems likely to add to the destruction by monsoon floods, and the frequency of cyclones may increase. Poor people of rural areas are hit hardest because they are more densely concentrated in badly constructed housing on land that is prone to hazards. In a word, natural disasters cause a heavy loss in our country and cause untold suffering to people, especially to the poor people. Natural disasters create poverty and poverty causes population displacement. Poverty in Bangladesh is especially persistent in three areas: the north-west, which is affected by droughts and river erosion; the central northern region, which is subject to serious seasonal flooding that limits crop production; and the southern coastal zones, which are affected by soil salinity and cyclones (8).

By analyzing population displacement in major natural events like flood and cyclone over 40 years (1970-2009), it has been found that on an average 25% (39 million) and 2% (3 million) populations in each major flood and cyclone are displaced. A major flood used to happen in every 4 years from 1970-1989, while the frequency of major flood occurrence has been increased in every 3 years from 1990-2009. Though, frequency of one or more severe disasters in a year has already been experienced in Bangladesh like the year 2007 (Cyclone Sidr and flood) and 2009 (Cyclone Aila and Cyclone Bijli), but in future occurrence of major natural events in every year might not be a surprise (10).

4.4: Others

Some poor people leave their villages because they mortgage their land and take money from moneylenders or from the influential people of the rural areas but are not able to pay it back and thus lose the mortgaged land or property. Some people migrate due to the torture unleashed on them by the influential quarters of the villages. Political dispute also compel people to migrate to the city. Some poor people take loan from NGOs and they cannot use this money for appropriate purpose. They spend all credit loans for their own family consumption or repairing houses. This default of credit pushed them to migrate to cities. In cities they are engaged in informal working professions and earn money. For returning instilment they go to villages and after payment they come back to city. For this system a lot of poor migrants stay in city areas for permanently (11).

5. UNEQUAL JOB OPPORTUNITIES AND DISPARITY IN INCOME BETWEEN RURAL AND URBAN AREAS:

Formal and informal sector jobs are existed in both rural and urban areas. But there is huge inequality in job opportunities between rural and urban areas. Moreover, people get less amount of money from any type of job in the rural areas while they get 2/3 times greater amount of money by performing same type of jobs in the urban areas or in Dhaka city. There is still considerable inequality in the distribution of income between rural and urban populations. In general, the urban population, in the areas around Dhaka, Chittagong, and other large cities, has long been involved in small and medium sized businesses or employed in various industries and in informal sector. They benefited from the recent growth and have higher incomes. Meanwhile, the rural population experience chronic shortages of land and regular floods and cyclones, which often a within matter of hours sweep away the results of months of hard work. The 1988, 1998, 2004 floods, for example, affected two-thirds of the country, wiping out the entire winter crop and displacing millions of people (12).

6. EMPLOYMENT OPPORTUNITIES IN DHAKA CITY:

Employment in Dhaka city is divided into two broad categories which are the formal and the informal sectors. The formal sector includes occupations such as banking, office clerks, physician, lawyer etc. The informal sector includes the works of street vendor, hawker, cobbler, carpenters, barbers etc. Considerable amount of employment are ensured by this sector (13). It has been estimated that about 65% of all employment in the city is in the informal sector (2).

Illiterate and less educated rural poor people are attracted by the informal sector of Dhaka city because they do not have enough job opportunities in rural areas. Rural migrants may not get employment immediately after the migration to the city. The majority of the new migrants are seemed to create their own employment and start their own business or work for small-scale family run enterprises. The self-employed migrants are engaged in various types of activities such as street vending, knife sharpening, selling fireworks etc. Other migrants find jobs as barber, carpenter, mechanic, cobbler, maid servant, hotel boy etc.

The majority of the people entering in the informal sector are recent migrants who are unable to find jobs in the formal sector. By involving in the informal sector activities the migrants can utilize their skills to make livelihood. Although living conditions and working conditions in the city may not be better than that in the rural areas, the income in informal sector in the city is higher than that in the rural areas. Migrants, who are interested in getting employment in the formal sector, find the informal sector as a safety net to fall back on if things do not work out for them. The informal sector is therefore seen as a cause of rural-urban migration, because it lowers the risk of the individual being unemployed once they move to the cities (14).

7. LIVING OPPORTUNITIES OF THE POOR MIGRANTS IN DHAKA CITY:

In Dhaka city, the migrated people have enough living opportunities. Generally the poor migrants who migrate to Dhaka city for searching work involve them in the informal sector and take their shelter in the slum areas. In 2010, it has been projected that upto 60% of the total population of the city are living in the slums (15). Slums in Dhaka city have been growing rapidly since 1971. Several surveys on slum growth in Dhaka, conducted by Centre for Urban Studies (CUS) recorded slum populations 275,000 in 1974, 718,143 (2,156 slums) in 1991, 1.5 million (3007 slums) in 1996 and 3.4 million (4,966 slums) in 2005 (16). According to the trend of the slum growth in the city the present number of slum would be more than 7000. Trend of growth shows that slum population increased two times more than previous count and it has been increasing since 1991 (10). The Bangladesh Bureau of Statistics (BBS) will conduct the country's second full census on slum and floating population in all the city corporation areas in 2014 (17). There are also a large number of messes and small houses in Dhaka city and many poor people live there. So, it can be said that living opportunities of the poor migrants in Dhaka city is considerably high though the condition of living places are not good.

8. RURAL TO URBAN MIGRATION AS LIVELIHOOD STRATEGY:

In Bangladesh, migration has long been an important livelihood strategy for the rural poor people. The rural population is increasing and the cultivable land area is decreasing day by day. So, land ownership of per person is also decreasing. Limited land ownership at the household level compels people to induce rural-urban migration in two ways. Firstly, those who have some parcel of land, but it cannot provide work to them for all the year-round, migrate for partial fulfillment of their household requirements e.g. clothes, medicines, household commodities, agricultural inputs etc. It is called seasonal migration. Secondly, those who have no land or very small parcel of land migrate to the cities permanently in the hope of getting livelihoods alternatives (3). Rural poor people migrate to the cities, especially to the Dhaka city to earn basic livelihoods. Poor people involve them in various types of informal works after migrating to the city to earn money and meet the demand of their families. Many migrants in Dhaka city improve their life by involving them in informal sector activities. In the rural areas livelihood of the poor people is hampered by many ways. Overpopulation, natural disasters etc. create unemployment in the rural areas. People search out the ways by which they can relieve from poverty. To exempt from the poverty rural poor identify rural to urban migration as the best strategy.

9. POLICIES AND PROGRAMMES OF GOVERNMENT:

Since independence, poverty reduction and economic growth were the major focus of the policy of every government of Bangladesh. In the 1980s, privatization and liberalization were given priority while development of human resources gained ascendancy from the 1990s. Then the draft national policy for economic growth and poverty reduction aims for pro-poor economic growth, human development, women’s advancement and closing the gender gap, closing the gap between rich and poor, social safety nets and participatory governance. Due to scarcity of land the government faces the daunting challenge of generating employment for a labour force that is growing faster than the population. Whilst agriculture and rural development are the cornerstones of the present strategy and non-farm activities are rapidly expanding. The government formulated the National Rural Development Policy 2001 to enhance the capacity and power of the rural poor people to develop, protect and sustain their livelihoods. The government allocates around 20% of the development budget for local government and rural development. The government has also outlined both medium and long-term issues to be covered under governance and rural development, ranging from law and order, local governance, better service delivery and rural infrastructure. But the policies and programmes regarding rural development are not implementing properly. That is why people are migrating to Dhaka city and other urban areas to search work for their livelihood on regular basis.

Since independence, the government had no internal migration policy till the recent past. The government has also failed to develop secondary towns and peri-urban areas. At last the government of Bangladesh has taken some policies regarding rural-urban migration. The government wants to influence the direction of internal flows of population, and that only indirectly, through policies of industrial decentralization. The assumption is that if industries and satisfactory and accessible services can be established in peri-urban areas and secondary cities, then migrants will avoid congested city centres and the larger cities in the country (18). But the policy is only for the urban formal sector. It should be mentioned that most of the rural poor people involve in the informal sector activities after migrating to the city. By this type of policy no people who are attracted by the informal sector of Dhaka city can be encouraged to migrate to peri-urban or secondary cities instead of Dhaka city. Because they are encouraged to migrate to Dhaka city attracted by its very large informal sector. So, informal sector based separate migration policy is needed according to the future plan of the government.

10. CONCLUSION:

Rural-urban migration is happened for achieving basic needs. In many cases it is also for finding better and secured place to live in. Rural-urban migration is rapidly increasing due to some push and pull factors. Push factors are those which force a person to move to the urban area or city. Floods, drought, famine, inadequate job opportunity, overpopulation etc. are included in the push factors. Pull factors are those which encourage a person to leave the native area. Job and living opportunities are included in the pull factors. In Bangladesh some issues in rural areas such as poverty, natural disasters, and inadequate job opportunities etc. work as push factors which force the rural people to migrate to the cities especially to Dhaka city. On the other hand, employment and living opportunities of Dhaka city attract the rural poor to come to the city. Informal sector of Dhaka city provides huge employment opportunity to the rural poor. The recent migrants can easily search out their shelter in the slum areas. So, the poor people who are in acute problems in the rural areas can take migration decision easily.

11. REFERENCES:

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7. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poverty_in_Bangladesh

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16. Centre for Urban Studies (CUS). Slums of urban Bangladesh, Mapping and Census. 2005.

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Received on 12.03.2016

Modified on 08.04.2016

Accepted on 23.04.2016

Research J. Humanities and Social Sciences. 7(2): April - June, 2016, 101-106

DOI: 10.5958/2321-5828.2016.00017.6