The New Nation - Internet Edition

BSS, Dhaka

Both internal and international migration spur land tenancy in the rural areas as higher incidence of land purchase is evident in places which have higher concentration of migration like Chittagong, Dhaka and Sylhet Divisions.

A recent study by Bangladesh Development Study said that in rural areas, the sale of land was 1.3 percent of the owned land, compared to 1.7 percent in 1987-88 and land purchase, which was reported at 2 percent in 1999-2000.

It said higher incidence of land purchase than its sale indicates that the important contribution of migration to the transactions in the land market.

By purchasing rural land, the urban settlers and overseas immigrants become the absentee landowners and get their land cultivated by the resident relatives under tenancy arrangement.

The study also pointed out that 21 percent of the migrant households were moderately poor prior to overseas migration by the respondents. In the post-migration period the proportion of such households slashed down dramatically to seven per cent.

At the rural end it was found that the extent of poverty was much lower around 30 percent for households having migrant members than non-migrant households around 60 percent.

In addition the flow of remittances also improved the standard of living of the recipients and helped in improving the income distribution in favour of the poorer and the less skilled workers.

Contribution of remittances to households' income hovers at around 20 percent, which has increased significantly by about 8.1 percent per year during 1988-2000 when per capita income grew at 3.2 percent.

Moreover, decline of poverty is most rapid in Chittagong, Dhaka and Sylhet Divisions indicating important role of remittances in poverty alleviation as these divisions have highest concentration of migrants.

Continuous flow of remittances might have reduced severity of poverty in these districts. Between 10 and 19 percent of remittances is used to repay loans, one major source of funding the migration process.

Drawing on the size of remittances, existing estimates suggests that it takes more than four years to send remittances that can help keep the household out of poverty threshold if it is dependent solely on respondents' remittances.