RURAL BANGLADESH - PreventionWeb

Socioeconomic Profile Findings
Remittances are important for female-headed households, unlike male-headed households;
15 percent of female-headed households depend on remittances as the primary income
earning strategy. Working-age individuals residing in male-headed households on the other
hand have a more diverse livelihood portfolio. Forty-five percent sell their labour as the
primary income strategy; another 26 percent engage in agricultural production on their own
land or through sharecropping or other arrangements, and 16 percent are involved in
business ventures, which normally translate into small business enterprises, trading, or small
shops. Male manual labourers tend to receive 50 to 100 percent higher wages than do
female manual labourers.
Table 42: Household Members’ Primary Income Strategy by WFP Priority Zone
% within WFP priority zone
Manual Labor
Agriculture
Govt. or private job
Remittances
Trading/ Business
Skilled labor
Other
N
Household members (age >15 years) primary income strategy
WFP priority zone
CHT Coastal Drought N/W Char Haor Total
24.3% 36.0% 39.2% 39.6% 43.8% 30.6% 38.2%
54.0% 23.1% 35.9% 30.5% 21.6% 34.3% 30.3%
7.4% 6.1% 3.3% 7.8% 7.6% 7.8% 6.7%
.2% .5% .9% .2% .3% .8% .5%
10.0% 25.3% 10.8% 16.1% 15.2% 15.8% 15.0%
3.2% 7.6% 8.5% 5.9% 10.9% 9.8% 8.6%
.9% 1.4% 1.3% .5% .8% .7%
783 535 656 559 510 545 3588
Data disaggregated by WFP priority zone indicate the importance of manual labour and
agricultural production across the six programming zones. Nearly half of the Char
population (44 percent) depend on manual labour, which is the most important livelihood
strategy in Coastal, Drought, and Northwest zones as well. On the other hand, less than a
quarter of the CHT population (24 percent) sell labour. A significantly larger proportion of
CHT population (54 percent) continue to depend on agriculture, which has declined in
importance in other regions, particularly in the Char and Coastal zones, where
landownership inequalities have increased most dramatically in recent decades. Trading and
business opportunities are prominent in the Coastal zone, where more than a quarter of
working age individuals depend on fry trading (12 percent of the working age population)
and another seven percent are involved in other small business initiatives. In contrast, only
10 percent of CHT income earners and 11 percent of Drought adult household members are
involved in business activities. Small business activities elsewhere are usually related to
agricultural post-production, such as rice milling or husking, but also include weaving and
marketing bamboo products, depending on the region of the country. In the CHT, some
businesses revolve around the processing and marketing of forest products; local beer is
produced for sale as well. Less than one percent of individuals across the six regions depend
on remittances, although remittances figure prominently in female-headed household
livelihood strategies (as noted above).
Throughout the six rural regions, 87 percent of individuals describe having stable permanent
incomes. Disaggregated data indicate that the lowest proportion of stable permanent income
earners live in the CHT and Char areas (73 and 75 percent respectively); employment
patterns appear most stable in the most livelihood secure Drought zone, where almost all (98
75