Women's Employment - United Nations Research Institute for Social ...

Gender dimensions of labour migration in Dhaka city’s formal manufacturing sector
and female) from the other manufacturing industries received such
help, suggesting that social networks might be advantageous in
securing better employment opportunities. Job-related assistance,
described above, facilitates more independent migration by women.
More generally, patterns of such support reflect the expansion of job
opportunities for garment factory workers over the last five years.
Independent migration in Bangladesh is not a phenomenon
occurring independent of family livelihood strategies. Instead, it
should be seen as a family-based strategy for income maximization
and poverty alleviation (Afsar, 1995). This point is supported by the
findings of Kibria in this volume. Hence, in the Bangladeshi context,
whether migration can be characterized as “independent” or
“associational” is determined mainly by the motive for migration. If
the purpose of migration is availing employment opportunities in
the city (including transfer or change of job) maximizing income gains
to reduce family poverty, and improving levels of education, it can
be considered as independent migration. Alternatively, if a person
migrates to stay with other family members and/or as a part of the
migration of the entire family — in other words, where the individual
members do not necessarily have any specific motivations for
migration — then it can be classified as “associational” migration. In
both cases, social networks play an important role in labour migration
process.
Table 6 (from Afsar, 1998a) shows that less than 10 per cent of
the migrants interviewed (28 per cent male and 3 per cent female)
came alone to Dhaka city. All the remaining respondents, irrespective
of gender, came to Dhaka city accompanied by immediate family
members, by other relatives and, in a few cases, by spouses. The
propensity to come to Dhaka with parents has declined substantially
over the years and this is true for both male and female migrants.
Whereas nearly half of the long-term migrant respondents were
accompanied by their parents to Dhaka city, less than a quarter of
recent migrants were. Female recent migrants demonstrated greater
propensity to migrate with kin members and friends/neighbours, than
long-term female migrants, who were more likely to come with their
parents. Whether accompanied by parents, siblings, relatives or
friends, female workers generally migrate with someone they know
well and seldom do they migrate alone. The propensity to migrate
alone has increased more among the recent male than long-term male
labourers. Nonetheless, the overwhelming majority of migrants come
to Dhaka with someone else, thus confirming the role played by social
networks in urban migration.
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