People leaving city for village nearly doubled in one year: BBS

Md Mahmudul Hasan was working as a manager at a bakery in the capital’s Mohammadpur Town Hall since he came to Dhaka with his wife in 2021. But, the factory was closed in last April and Mahmudul Hasan tried to find a job, but failed. So, he returned to village in Shyamnagar upazila of Satkhira with his family.

When asked Mahmudul Hasan told Prothom Alo, “The bakery owner couldn’t run the factory as the operation cost increased. As a result, half of the factory’s 15 workers returned to village. I was also forced to come back to village after finding no job in Dhaka. I am trying to do something in the village.”

Like Mahmudul Hasan, there has been a rising trend among people with various income brackets and professions to return to villages leaving cities.

The trend was revealed by the Sample Vital Statistics Survey, which was released on Wednesday.

State-owned Bangladesh Bureau of Statistics (BBS) conducted the survey.

According to the BBS survey, the number of people returning to village from city nearly doubled in a gap of one year. Eleven in 1000 people living in city returned to village in 2022, which were six in 1000 in 2021.

Data from the survey showed there was a sudden rise in trend to leave city for village among people in 2020, and previously it was very low. The survey also showed there was a rise in the migration of people from village to city or a city to another city.

Researchers and economists said the rise in migration of people both in village and city reflects that overall poor and low-income people are facing hardship. The pressure that was created on low-income people is yet to decrease; rather this crisis has been intensified by the rise in inflation and living cost triggered by abnormal rise of commodity prices. As a result, people are increasingly migrating to village from city or a city to another city in a bid to survive.

When asked former chief economist of Bangladesh Bank Mustafa K Mujeri told Prothom Alo, “The overall economic activities of the country have decreased and inflation remains as an additional pressure. For these reasons, people are living in hardship, and the BBS survey shows us it. People have been disparate to survive now. Whether they live in village or city, people want to migrate as part of their survival bid.”

According to BBS survey, international migration also increased in the country last year. The number of people leaving the country also doubled. Some 6.6 in 1000 people migrated to foreign country in 2022, which were 3 in 1000 people in 2021.

For domestic migration, the number of people migrated to city also increased like the rise in the number of people leaving city for village. According to BBS Survey, 65 in 1000 people migrated to city in 2021, which were 48 in 1000 people in 2021. However, people migrated less from village to village.

Private research organisation Power and Participation Research Centre (PPRC) and BRAC's Institute for Governance and Development (BIGD) conducted a research on the number of people migrating to village from city in mid-2020. According to the research findings, at least 16 per cent of poor people left Dhaka during the Covid period and these people left the capital as they could not manage the rising expenses including house rent, medical expenses and transportation cost.

According to PPRC and BIGD, house servants, mostly women, were the highest number of people losing their jobs during Covid pandemic, followed by unskilled workers at different sectors.

Global fuel and food prices started rising after the Russia-Ukraine war broke out in February 2022, and that also took a toll on Bangladesh. Prices of all essentials as well as living cost skyrocketed and a pressure fell on the people. As this pressure continues, the trend on job loss and people’s migration from city did not decrease, economists observed.

Economist Mustafa K Mujeri said situation would not become normal even people migrate from city to village or village to city. If overall economic activities don’t increase, the pressure that has been created on the people will increase, he added.

*This report appeared in the print and online edition of Prothom Alo and has been rewritten in English by Hasanul Banna