Profile of the Migrants from Bangladesh: A Comparative Analysis between Current and Returnee Migrants

Abstract

This paper explores and compares the profile of the current and returnee migrants who migrated from Bangladesh. The analysis is  based on cross-sectional primary data collected from a nationally representative field survey conducted among 303 number of respondents of whom 194 were current migrants and 109 were returnee migrants. The findings reveal that the current Bangladeshi  migrants are migrating at an earlier age than the returnee Bangladeshi migrants. Current migrants are migrating with lesser years of  schooling than that of returnee migrants. The mean duration of active employment abroad is 9.06 years for current migrants and that  of returnee migrants is 9.34 years. On an average, current migrants have to work longer hours daily than the returnee migrants. The  dependency of rural families of Bangladesh on international migration is increasing with the passage of time. The unemployment rate  among the household-heads of Bangladeshi migrants increases by 10 percentage point when one of the members of that family  migrates abroad.