Leaving for living? Factors and dynamics behind Bangladeshi female migration to the Gulf states

ABSTRACT

The paper explores the factors that cause female labour migration to the Gulf states from Bangladesh. Grounded on Amartya Sen’s concept of well-being in terms of capability and Marta Nussbaum’s further interpretation on that, the paper focuses on the cases of Bangladeshi returned and intended female domestic workers and analyses the factors influencing the decision of transnational labour migration. The study follows a qualitative method including in-depth semi-structured interviews, coupled with some focus group discussions, participant observation, and secondary data analysis. The paper unveils different external and internal factors influencing women’s decision on migration. Global demand for female domestic workers and caregivers is rising in many nations. In response to that, many countries including Bangladesh have relaxed restrictions on women’s transnational labour migration and facilitate their involvement in the global care industry. Furthermore, socio-economic, and personal drivers play a role for migrating to the Gulf states.

KEYWORDS:

• Female labour migration
• Gulf states
• Bangladesh
• gender
• capability
• migration

Acknowledgements

I am grateful to Professor German Calfat for his supervision and guidance in doing this research. My sincere thanks to Dr Sara Geneen, Dr Neil Howard and Dr shtiaq Jamil for their valuable comments and feedbacks. I am also thankful to all respondents and relevant organisations in Bangladesh- Ministry of Expatriates’ Welfare and Overseas Employment (MEWOE), Bureau of Manpower, Employment and Training (BMET), Bangladesh Overseas Employment and Service Limited (BOESL) and Ovibashi Kormi Unnayan Program (OKUP) for their co-operation and support during data collection.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1 Key informant interview with an of BRAC migration programme, in Dhaka, 20 December, 2020.

2 Key informant interview with an officials of BMET, Mr Sobhan in Dhaka, 22 June, 2017.

3 Key informant interview with an staff of BMET, Mr Sobhan in Dhaka, 22 June, 2017.

4 Taka or BDT is Bangladeshi currency.

5 4,946.06 USD.

6 3,709.55 USD.

7 An interview with Aklima, aged 31 (returned domestic worker from Lebanon), in Dhaka, 09 July, 2017.

8 An interview with Amena, aged 29 (intended migrant to Saudi Arabia), inDhaka, 15 July, 2017.

9 Over the period of 1989–1992, 1.8 million rural women were covered by three major credit programmes. With other smaller credit programmes added, the total number of women covered my microloans exceeds well over 2 million (Goetz and Sen Gupta 1994). In parallel, in the early 80s, the RMG industry creates job opportunities for 1.8 million workers and around 1.5 million of these workers are women (Kabeer and Mahmud 2004).

10 25 USD–99 USD.

11 Based on the data for the 1990s, Hossain and Tisdell (2005) examine wages across 16 manufacturing industries, where the findings result that women earn an average of approximately 20% less per year than men, with lower yearly earnings observed across all 16 sectors in Bangladesh .

12 37 USD to 62 USD.

13 An interview with Rahela, aged 35 (retunred domestic worker from Saudi Arabia), in Narayanganj, 23 June, 2017.

14 An Interview with Koli, aged 48 (returned domestic worker from Lebanon), in Narayangaj, 20 June, 2017.

15 The employment rate of women is 58%, as estimated in 2010, which was close to 30 percentage points lower than the rate for men (ILO 2017).

16 An interview with Sajia, aged 26 (returned domestic worker from Saudi Arabia), in Dhaka, 14 July, 2017.

17 An interview with Surma, aged 20 (returned domestic worker from Saudi Arabia), inNarayanganj, 9 July, 2017.

18 The legal marital age can be 16 years in some special cases (rape, early pregnancy) according to newly proposed law in 2016 .

19 An interview with Rashma, aged 48 (returned domestic worker from Saudi Arabia), in Dhaka, 14 July, 2017.

20 For Muslim, Hajj is a mandatory religious duty that must be carried out at least once in their lifetime. This is particularly applied for all adult Muslims who are physically and financially capable of undertaking the journey and can support their family during their absence.

21 An interview with Fatema, aged 36 (intended migrant to Saudi Arabia), in Naryanganj, 19 March, 2019.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the Travel Grant from the Institute of Development Policy and Management (IOB), University of Antwerp, Belgium, and scholarships from VLIR-UOS, Belgium.

Notes on contributors

Jinat Hossain

Jinat Hossain is a PhD researcher at the Department of Earth and Environmental Sciences at KU Leuven, Belgium. She also holds a position of Assistant Professor at Noakhali Science and Technology University, Bangladesh. Her PhD is about climate change, gender, and social innovation. Her research covers multi-disciplinary issues connected to gender and feminist theories. Some of the themes she works with are gendered policy, migration, inheritance (land) right, and sustainable climate change adaptation.