Project 1b
Livelihoods, Social Protection and Intergenerational Equity in Migration from Bangladesh to the Gulf

Summary
This project seeks to examine the interrelationship between poverty, social protection and international migration in Sylhet, North East Bangladesh. The context is one in which sustained overseas migration (predominantly to the UK) has had a dramatic effect upon the local economy. The visible success of overseas migration as an economic strategy has led many economically marginal households to struggle against all odds to get a foothold in work abroad.

Rather than examining well-established transnational households, whose members are now largely reunited in Britain, this study will focus upon poorer households who are struggling to gain access to irregular migration to the Gulf. Many households are prepared to gamble their livelihoods, by selling land, for the chance to migrate. However, they may never remit enough to cover the costs of migrating. Others are cheated by unscrupulous brokers and lose land this way. For those that do successfully migrate, their absence has a variety of implications for the women, children and older people left behind. For example, young wives of Gulf migrants are often considered vulnerable to abandonment. The sustained absence of the younger generation may have negative repercussions on ageing parents and other vulnerable household members. These negative effects may be further magnified as economically marginal households are often smaller and lack local patronage.

Key Research Questions

	What are the livelihood implications of economically marginal households' attempts to migrate overseas?
	What are the effects on families left behind?
	How does the position of the family in local social relations affect their ability to deal with new vulnerabilities?
	What are the gendered and generational implications of this migration flow?
	What is the experience of migration of men from economically marginal households?
	What are the social protection issues for these men?
	What are the barriers to better social protection for migrants and their families?