Coping with Floods: Does Rural-Urban Migration Play any Role for Survival in rural Bangladesh?

Abstract

At the time of flooding, rural people in Bangladesh cannot manage thelingering effects of labor market disruptions, price fluctuations, and consumption deficiency. As a consequence, kin groups, lineages or even entire villages shift from their home to nearby big urban areas. To assess the efficacy of migration, a cross sectionalhousehold survey was carried out two weeks after a flood in four districts of Bangladesh in the year 2005. In total, 595 rural households were interviewed based on fully structured questionnaires. The results show that the decision to migrate is often guided by the aspiration to replenish asset values damaged by the flood. Thus, rural-urban migration emerges as a source of credit. Inclusion of social networks plays an important role duringflood crisis to get information about the host areas. In financing livelihoods during floods, landless or poor people incur informal debts from the money lenders; this in turn accumulated by the consecutive years of flooding, leave a shadow of default and liquidation over many vulnerable households. The rural-urban migration allows potentially vulnerable households to avoid a debt cycle.

Keywords

• Bangladesh
• Flood
• Coping
• Migration
• Vulnerability