Comparative ‘capability’ of migrant and non-migrant households: Evidence from rural Bangladesh

Abstract

This research aims to ascertain the level of capabilities attainment by the rural households of Bangladesh through temporary international migration. Multilevel Propensity Score Matching (PSM) based on logistic regression is used to construct the ‗treatment‘ group of migrant households and ‗control‘ group of non-migrant households. Various observed characteristics of 5219 households from the cross-sectional Bangladesh Integrated Household Survey (BIHS) 2011-12 (Ahmed, 2013) is used to perform the matching procedures, and it matched 490 households of which 178 households for the ‗treatment‘ and other 312 households for the ‗control‘ group with similar observed characteristics like the ‗treatment‘ group. Between these two groups, various outcome variables are compared by mean difference in case of continuous variables and relative proportion for categorical variables. Evidence from the matched sample indicates that migrant households have a higher level of food & non-food consumptions, better housing, higher education expenditure for the children, higher health expenditure, better access to the communication & social acceptance and higher participation of women in household decision-making compare to non-migrant households. In summary, they do possess extended capabilities and functionings i.e. ‗well-being‘ and ‗social relation‘. However, migrant households are also exposed to higher level of total outstanding loan, one-third of which taken exclusively for migration.