Impact of Remittances on Remittance-Recipient Households’ SocioEconomic Behavior: A Study in Moulvibazar District of Bangladesh

Abstract

This study examines the socioeconomic impacts of remittance on the remittance-recipient households through a primary survey in rural Bangladesh. We pay particular attention to the households who have received remittances for at least one year but not more than ten years. The size of remittances in Bangladesh is more than $14 billion which is equivalent to about 11 percent of country's GDP. This large amount of remittance has helped shape Bangladesh's economy to a great extent for three decades. This socioeconomic impact of remittances on remittance-recipient households is important in the sense that they continue to be a significant source of income for countless families and play a crucial role of co-insurance at times of hardship. The demonstration of relative economic solvency of remittance-recipient households encouraged encourage many more to migrate abroad for work which now has reached more than 9 million as of January 2015, as a consequence of high unemployment/underemployment rate in the country. From the results of the survey, it appears that higher duration of remittance-recipient households have higher level of income and investment, expenditure, and higher socioeconomic standing in the society.