June 2007 - Volume 1, Issue 3

SOCIO-ECONOMIC CHARACTERISTICS OF FEMALE MARRIED MIGRANTS:
CASE STUDY OF KATAKHALI POURUSOVA OF RAJSHAHI DISTRICT IN BANGLADESH

	Ahmed Omar Faruk Rafiqul Islam MD Mosiur Rahman MD Department of Population Science and Human Resource Development, University of Rajshahi, Rajshahi-6205, Bangladesh
	Mosiur Rahman Department of Population Science and Human Resource Development University of Rajshahi, Rajshahi-6205, Bangladesh E-mail: swaponru_2000@yahoo.com

ABSTRACT The aim of this paper is to investigate the socio-economic conditions of the migrants of Katakhali Paurashava in Rajshahi district. Using the information from 1500 ever-married women of Rajshahi district within the reproductive span (15-49 years), it was found that the maximum migrants have migrated in the age range of 20 to 34. It was also seen that most of the migrants are illiterate. This study also envisages that most migrants do not earn money, so they depend on their husbands. Our study also reveals that those women who engage in non-agricultural works, service and business have a greater chance of migration compared to women who are housewives. This study helps observes the socio-economic characteristics of the female married migrants, in the interests of better understanding, and may be used as a benchmark to evaluate how migration can change the lifestyle of individuals, and the families, regionally and nationally. Actually people migrate to a certain place with hopes of improving their social and economic status.

INTRODUCTION

Migration is purely a socio-economic phenomenon, which is a result of a complex mechanism involving social, psychological, economic, political, institutional and other determinants.

The process of migration is complex. It not only affects the size and growth of population of an area but can also produce remarkable alternations in the structure and distribution of population (D. Misra, an Introduction to the Study of Population, Second edition)

Migration is a flexible and dynamic phenomenon that encompasses territorial mobility of people and involves movements such as commuting, absence from home place for periods from a couple of days to several years, seasonal migration and permanent relocation. Although diversified in forms, it involves a certain degree of commitment on the part of migrant to the place of origin[1] and of destination[2] which occurs due to the perception of spatial differential of opportunities, the idea that different geographical locations offer different level of potential well being, to various sections of the human population. The study of population migration has been a rapidly developing branch of several academic disciplines such as economists, sociologists, historians, psychologist, demographers and geographers who all find the residential movements of the human population to be of importance to their respective subjects. For this reason the study of migration is both a multidisciplinary as well as an inter-disciplinary field (White and Woods, 1980).

Migration is a form of geographical or spatial mobility involving a change of usual residence between clearly defined geographical units (UNO, 1958). Migration is a relatively permanent moving a way of a group collectively called migrants, from one geographical location to another and proceeded by decision making on the basis of hierarchical order (Mangalam, 1968). Migration is conveniently defined as a change in the usual place for another, for a considerable time (Fortes, 1971; Du Toit, 1975).

Internal migration[3] is an integral part of the development process. It is influenced by development (such as the building of roads, economic activities and employment opportunities in certain areas) and it influences development (destination areas gain in skills and capital while areas of origin lose out) (Chandra and Chandra, 1998:60). There are relationships between and among migration, urbanization and socio-economic development. According to Skeldon (1992) "At a very simple level, there is a clear relationship between economic variables of development."

Population migration reflects people's responses to many different factors such as social and economic inequalities, social and cultural conditions and constraints, and other infrastructure and accessibility aspects at places of origin and destination. Studies have generally indicated that migration occurs mainly for marriage purposes (Parera, 1993; Thadani and Todaro, 1984; Todaro, 1989, 1994 and Young, 1994). In our study; we found that, marriage is the most general cause of migration of people from Katakhali Pourusova of Rajshahi district, but it is generally caused by the norms of male or female exogamy. Thus it relates to the normative system that prevails in the community.

Under village exogamy, marriage migration can also result from sex-imbalance in a particular status group of people where custom prescribes that marriage partners are of same status or from sex-imbalance across groups where one party (either male or female) must be of higher status. Alamgir (1993) also indicated in one study that the vast majority of female migration occurred due to marriage and was directed towards other villages.

The factors influencing the decision to migrate are varied and complex. As migration is an elective process, affecting an individual with certain economic, social, educational and demographic characteristics, the relative influence of economic and non-economic factors may vary not only between nations and regions but also within defined geographic areas and populations. In our study an attempt has been made to investigate the socio-economic characteristics for female marriage migrants. The basic findings are that migration takes place due to change in the lifestyle of individuals, the families as well as the region and nation. Actually people migrate to a certain place with hopes of improving their social and economic status. Different authors reveal the information in different ways and they have some limitations. In our study an attempt has been made to observe the socio-economic condition of female married migrants.

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[1] Place of origin: The place which the migrant leaves is called place of origin.
[2] Place of Destinantion: The place where the migrant arrives is known as place of destination.
[3] Internal Migration: Internal signifies the movement within the boundaries of a given nation. DATA & METHODS

Data

The data were collected from a field survey conducted under the project of UNFPA entitled "Strengthening the Department of Population Science and Human Resource Development". The pattern of data has been obtained in three sections, namely, fertility, mortality and migration, along with socio-economic characteristics of the respondents in Katakhali Pourusova of Rajshahi district, by interview method using a set questionnaire. In this case data have been used from couples where the females belong to a fertility age group (that is age group 15-49 years) listed in the voter list as a population frame. In this area, there was found to be 1376 migrants and 124 non-migrants.

Methods

Data analytic method used in this paper is percentage distribution and logistic regression analysis. A brief discussion on these methods has been incorporated in the following subsections.

Percentage Distribution

Percentage distribution is used in this study for getting the real picture of the migration behavior of Katakhali Pourusova of Rajshahi district.

Logistic Regression Analysis

Logistic regression, also called logit regression is used when the response variable may be quantitative, categorical, or a mixture of the two.

In logistic regression, just as in linear regression, the codes for the independent variables must be meaningful. We must decode the values of the independent variables by creating a new set of variables that correspond, in some way, with the original categories. When we have a variance with more than two categories, we must create a new variable to represent the categories. The number of new variables required to represent a categorical variable is one less than the number of categories. For example, if instead of the actual values for education of the respondents, we had values of 0, 1 depending on whether the value was 'no education', and 'some education'. The value ''no education'' would be represented by codes of 0 and it is called reference category. If we use indicator variable for coding, the coefficient for the new variables represents the effect of each category compared to a reference category. The coefficient for 'some education' is the change in log odds when the lower primary is compared to no education. The coefficients for no educations are necessarily zero, since it does not differ from itself. The logistic regression procedure will automatically create new variables for categorical variables.

Conceptual Framework

In our study, those who migrate for marriage purposes, is the dependent variable. Migration as the dependent variable is influenced by a number of factors that could be social, economic, cultural and demographic. Social background has a moderate yet significant effect upon the person's decision to migrate, but it seems that education also has a strong influence on decision to migrate. Higher education provides women with status or opportunities that reduces the propensity to live in rural areas.

In lieu of these factors the migration can be analyzed by using a simple framework (See fig-1).

Key: OCU = Occupation, EDU = Education, AGE = Current Age, MAS = Marital Status, EFC = Effect of Cultivate land, INC = Income, MIG = Migration

The socio-economic and demographic factors are perceived as determining the reason for the person's decision to migrate. Education is closely related for the cause of migration study. Students for purpose of education in urban areas, undertake a great deal of migration. Better educational opportunities exist in urban areas. The occupation is the most important factor for the cause of migration. People in rural areas want to migrate to urban industrial areas. In general there is a positive relationship between income and migration, and a number of studies indicate that migration is positively correlated with the level of income. ANALYSIS AND RESULTS

Socio-economic Differentials of Migration

The socio-economic factors that will be analyzed in this study include current age, education, marital status, income, occupation and effect of cultivated land.

Age is the most important variable for the description and analysis of any kinds of research and for the evaluation of the quality of the survey counts of population. From Table-1 it can be seen that in our study area most of the respondents migrate in the age range of 20-34 (60.9 percent).

Marital status and cause of migration is closely related. Table-1 shows that the maximum number of migrants are currently married (98.0percent) and a few are 'others' (i.e., divorce, separation, widowhood). So we can say that most of the migrants are married. Education is the most important indicator of the socio-economic status of a person or any respondent, which affects almost all aspects of human life. Moreover, the propensity to migrate increases with the increase in educational level. In our study, we found that a vast majority of the migrants were illiterate (32.8 percent), on the other hand 39.2 percent of the migrants were found to have secondary and higher levels of education (Table-1).Brigg (1971) suggests that migrants tend to be of high educational standard, relative to the population of their place of origin, if they are moving primarily in response to positive factors at the destination; whereas they are of lower educational standard if they are responding to negative factors at their place of origin.

From Table1 we also observe that migrants in this area had a lower income. After migration 9.1 percent of the surveyed migrants had an income in the range of taka, less than 1500 per month. But a very high section of migrants in this study area earn this high range. In this situation the rural unemployed laborers and the members of kin households migrate from their native villages to urban areas seeking employment.

Determinants of the Migrants: A Logistic Regression Analysis

Migration is the effect of various phenomena. It is interesting to find which phenomena are more responsible for migration.

The logistic model is fitted by considering the relative risk that a women had migrated which we dichotomized by assigning 1 if the respondent did and 0 if she did not. Odd ratios are shown in place of regression coefficients for the easy interpretation of results. A statistically significant odd ratio below 1.00 means a negative effect of an independent variable, while a statistically significant odds ratio above 1.00 means a positive effect. The variables considered as independent in the model are shown in Table 2.

From results of logistic regression analysis (Table-3), it appears that, respondents who did not complete primary level of education are 0.60 times less likely to migrate than those respondents who had no education, on the other had respondents who had secondary and higher level of education are 1.9 times more likely to migrate than those who had no education.

Landholding of a household, plays an important role in determining rural in-migration in an agrarian economy where the people are mostly dependent on land for their livelihood. However, studies conducted in developing countries on the relationship between landholding and propensity to move, have shown dissimilar results. It should be mentioned here that, Hill (1972) found that the poorer and landless have a greater propensity for migration than richer and big landowners. The findings of this study do not support strongly any of the above propositions. Respondents who had 2 acres or more land are 0.19 times less likely to migrate than those respondents who had no land and this relationship is found to be statistically significant.

It was found that households with occupations such as service, business and other livelihoods have less chance of migration as compared to migrants who were housewives. The risk of migration has been found to be 0.0022, 0.7851and 0.0012 times lower for migrants belonging to occupations such as service, business and others respectively as compared to migrants who were housewives.

Agriculture is the main sector for employment of the rural households. They earn most of their income from this sector. Respondents whose income in was in the range of 1500-2000tk are 2.1 times more likely to migrate than those whose income is below 1500 tk. and 3.3 times more for respondents having secondary and higher levels of education and this relationship is statistically highly significant. CONCLUSION

By observing the whole study we may say, it is a traditional system in our society that all the women have to migrate after their marriage. Most of the migrants have to migrate in the age ranges 20-34, and most of them are educated and many of them do not earn money and consequently they depend on their husbands. POLICY IMPLICATION

From the forgoing analysis, it appears that it is difficult to make any easy and good solutions in solving the destitute problems. The following recommendations are suggested according to my own views:

1. Need to invest resources for the improvement of rural economy through different rural development projects and by creating job opportunities in the rural areas.
2. Emphasis on rural industrialization. This rural industrialization will be an instrument of employment and income generation for the rural landless poor; present or pre-employment migration has already burdened urban centers.
3. Encourage the rural people on more scientifically sound agricultural production.
4. Institute proper policy and programmes of integrated rural development.
   

REFERENCES

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3. Schultz, (T.P 1971): Rural-Urban Migration in Colombia. Review of Economics and Statistics, 53(2), Pp. 157-163.
4. Todaro MP (1969): A model of Labor Migration and Urban Unemployment in less Developed Countries. The American Economic Review, 59:138-148.
5. Todaro MP (1985): Rural - urban migration: theory and policies, In. Economics for a developing wordl., Longman, Second edition. 209-220pp.
6. Todaro, M.P. (1976): Internal Migration in Developing Countries. International Labor Office, Geneva.
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