Bangladeshi Migration to Italy

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ORIGINAL PAPER

Bangladeshi migration to Italy: the family perspective

Md Mizanur Rahman & M. A. Kabir

Received: 28 November 2011 /Accepted: 4 June 2012 /Published online: 16 June 2012# Springer-Verlag 2012

Abstract Reformation of immigration policy in Italy has paved the way for theemergence of some non-European emigrant communities in Italy including Bangla-deshi community. This study addresses the Bangladeshi migration to Italy by high-lighting context of immigrant reception in Italy, characteristics of Bangladeshiemigrants, their channels of migration, role of intermediaries in the migration process,economic cost of migration and inflows of remittances and its implications on familydynamics. This study draws from the Bangladesh Household Remittance Surveyconducted by the International Organization for Migration—Dhaka in 2009. Thestudy reports that opportunities in the Italian labour market translate into the in-creased opportunities for migrant families left behind in Bangladesh.

Southern European countries especially Italy, Spain, Portugal and Greece have been amajor migration destination region for both European and non-European migrants in thelate 1970s and soaring through the 1980s (King et al. 2000; King 2001; Anthias andLazaridis 2000; Bonifazi et al. 2008). Of these Southern European countries, Italy is acase in point. In the period 1990–2000, the stock of immigrants doubled in Italy; itincreased from about 650,000 to almost 1,300,000 (Zontini 2010, p. 3). According toanother estimate, between 1986 and 2004, the legal resident foreign population rosefrom under 300,000 to an estimated 2.6 million, accounted for 4.5 % of the totalpopulation (Chaloff 2006, p. 149). The number of immigrants in Italy reached a littlemore than 4.8 million in 2009 (Cesareo 2009, p. 11). With the fall of employment visas

Asia Eur J (2012) 10:251–265DOI 10.1007/s10308-012-0333-3

M. M. Rahman (*)Institute of South Asian Studies, National University of Singapore, #07-01 Tower Block, 469A BukitTimah Road, Singapore 259770, Singaporee-mail: [email protected]: www.isas.nus.edu.sg

M. A. KabirDepartment of Applied Statistics, Faculty of Economics and Administration,University of Malaya (UM), Kuala Lumpur, Malaysiae-mail: [email protected]

Author's personal copy

and the rise of family reunion visas in the recent years (SOPEMI 2010, p. 214), Italy hasindeed transformed from a country of labour migration to that of family immigrationand settlement.

Italy has been one of the major destinations for the Bangladeshi migrants in SouthernEurope. For instance, Bangladeshi immigrants living in Italy were around 84,000 in2009 (Blangiardo 2009, p. 35). The number of (regular) Bangladeshi migrants isprojected to be 118,000 in 2015, 158,000 in 2020 and 232,000 in 2030 (Blangiardo2009, p. 49). In addition to regular immigrants, Italy also hosts a large number ofirregular immigrants from both European and non-European countries (King 2001).The number of irregular Bangladeshi emigrants was reported 11,000 in 2009(Blangiardo 2009, p. 35). However, another source suggests that the number ofirregular Bangladeshi emigrants was nearly 74,000 in 2009.1 This growing presenceof Bangladeshi emigrants is indicative that Bangladeshis availed the immigrationopportunity to Italy brought about by periodic changes in immigration laws since themid 1980s.

Bangladeshi migrants in Italy are predominantly single and male migrants who areliving under ‘transnationally split’ (Yeoh et al. 2002) conditions and obligated tomaintain economic and social relations with their family members back home. Theobligation of maintaining sustained economic and social ties stems from the domi-nance of family in the social and economic affairs in the Bangladeshi society.Migration decision has been a household strategy to diversity risk and to accumulatecapital for investment in the developing countries (Stark 1991). Individual migrant isdeeply enmeshed in a complex web of household relations and dependencies: he/shemove internationally for work as an envoy of the extended family that places the well-being of the extended family before the individual migrants' interests. Whether it istemporary labour migration such as migration to the Middle East or more permanentform of migration such as migration to Italy, maintaining sustained economic rela-tions with families left behind remains one of the key priorities for migrant members(Ahsan Ullah 2010). This is more and more evidenced in the annual inflow ofremittances to Bangladesh, which has increased from around 4.2 billion in 2005 tonearly $11 billion in 2010.2

The economic relations between migrants and their families are often the centre ofdiscussion for the migration-development debate. However, existing studies often tendto highlight the migration-development nexus in the context of some selected developedcountries such as the USA, Germany, Netherlands and the UK or of some popular labourmigration countries in Asia and Africa (Papademetriou and Martin 1991; Hermele1997; Piper 2009). Southern European counties, being a new migration destination,are not adequately highlighted in the debate on migration and development. Inparticular, there is a dearth of research on the linkages between migrants and theirfamilies left behind in some new source countries in Asia. This study attempts toclose the gap in existing scholarship by highlighting the Bangladeshi migration to

1 “The number of Bangladeshi migrants in Italy on the rise”, October 30, 2010, Amaderdesh, http://www.amaderdesh.com/desh/italy-on-rise/ accessed on 29 October 20112 BMET, Government agency in charge of monitoring outflow of Bangladeshi migrants, Bureau ofManpower, Employment and Training (BMET), accessed on October 28, 2011 http://www.bmet.org.bd/BMET/stattisticalDataAction,

252 M.M. Rahman, M.A. Kabir


http://www.amaderdesh.com/desh/italy-on-rise/

http://www.amaderdesh.com/desh/italy-on-rise/

http://www.bmet.org.bd/BMET/stattisticalDataAction

http://www.bmet.org.bd/BMET/stattisticalDataAction

Italy and developmental implications on migrant households left behind inBangladesh.

After decades of pessimism and concerns, governments of source countries haveput renewed hopes on transnationally oriented migrants as potential actors of devel-opment (Schiller and Faist 2010). Hopes are pinned on transnational migrants,sending remittances to their families in origin countries (Faist 2010). Scholarsrevisiting the debate on migration-development nexus increasingly see migration asa process and as an integral part of broader transformation processes in the society(Faist et al. 2011). This research highlights migration as a process and explainsremittance-induced changes at the household level in terms of development process.This is in the line with Amartya Sen's views on development as a process ofincreasing the freedoms of the people, shortly ‘development as freedom’ (Sen1999). From an empirical perspective, Sen has proposed three capabilities that arethe proximate determinants of the basic freedoms: health, education and income. Thisstudy assesses the implication of migration-induced remittances in terms of thesethree determinants: health, education and income.

In particular, this study attempts to address the following research questions: Whatis the context of immigrant reception in Italy? What are the socio-demographicprofiles of Bangladeshi migrants in Italy? What is the trend of Bangladeshi migrationto Italy? What is the trend of remittance flows from Italy to Bangladesh? What are thechannels of Bangladeshi migration to Italy? What is the economic cost of migration?How do migrants finance their migration expenses? What are the implications ofremittances on family dynamics? This paper starts by presenting the data sources forthe study. The next section provides the context of immigrant reception in Italy in thelight of the changes in immigration laws. This is followed by socio-demographiccharacteristics of Bangladeshi migrants in Italy. Subsequent sections focus on chan-nels of Bangladeshi migration to Italy, and implications of remittances on familydynamics. The final section gives a summary of the findings of the study.

Data sources

This study is based on the ‘Bangladesh Household Remittance Survey’ (BHRS) 2009implemented by International Organization for Migration (IOM) in Dhaka with thefinancial support from Department for International Development—the UK. In addi-tion to survey data, this study also draws from qualitative interviews of migrants,return migrants and activists of migrant organizations in Bangladesh between 2010and 2011. The Bangladesh Migrant Household Survey interviewed migrant house-holds across the country through a nationally representative sample of migranthouseholds from all six administrative divisions of Bangladesh. The districts of thesix divisions of the country were divided into two strata, with one stratum consistingof ‘More Concentration of Migrant’ (MCM) households and the other stratumconsisting of ‘Less Concentration of Migrant’ (LCM) households'. Following this,clusters was formed with one or more mauzas (closely synonymous with a village),depending on the cluster's size as set in terms of number of general households.

These clusters were selected independently from each stratum using the Probabil-ity Proportional to Size method of selection. The total sample was made up of 457

Bangladeshi migration to Italy 253


clusters (i.e. 257 from MCM districts and 200 from LCM districts). All households inevery selected cluster were listed, identifying only the migrant households. House-hold listings were done by taking a complete census of the households in each of theclusters. This involved visiting every household in the designated area. A migranthousehold has been defined as a household that had at least one of its members living/working abroad during the time of the survey. The selection of the migrant householdwas made independently of their current status (e.g. regular or irregular) in thecountry of destination. In total, the number of migrants in the survey was 12,893.The survey covered a wide range of migration issues encompassing socio-economicbackground, processing and economic cost of migration, remittances and impacts ofremittances on households that serve the scope of this paper. Of these 12,893migrants, 177 migrants were working in Italy. This paper is based on the experiencesof these 177 migrants' households in Bangladesh.

The context of immigrant reception in Italy

Italy was a major emigration country until the early 1970s when millions of Italiansimmigrated to North America as well as wealthy Northern Europe. In the late 1970sand 1980s, this migratory pattern changed dramatically and Italy started to receiveforeigners from Eastern Europe, Northern Africa and Asia. Italy is the first country inMediterranean Europe to acquire a positive migration balance in 1972 (Knights 1996,p. 106) and by 1997, the net flow of remittances had reversed (Chaloff 2006, p. 149).It is often argued that Italy's position in the centre of the Mediterranean, extensivecoastline and important tourism and pilgrimage industry has made relatively acces-sible country for potential migrants from non-European countries (King 1993; Kingand Andall 1999; Knights 1996; Chaloff 2004; Triandafyllidou 2007). However, thesharp increase in immigrant population is also attributed to rapid economic and socialtransformations in Italy (King and Andall 1999; King 2001).

Italy has passed several sets of immigration legislations since the mid 1980s tocontrol migration flows, and regularize and integrate new immigrants (Chaloff 2004;Cesareo 2009; Blangiardo 2009; Pastore et al. 2006). The first attempt was made in1986 when Italy first devised policy to control the entry of immigrants seekingemployment and regularized immigrants who were already in Italy could prove suchemployment. This immigration reform facilitated the regularization of about 105,000migrants (Cesareo 2007). The second legislation, enacted in law in 1990 known as the“Martelli law”, was broad in scope; it introduced the annual planning of migratory flows(limited admissions of foreigners for work), and certain norms regarding the rights andobligations of foreigners in Italy, stay and work conditions and other related matters suchas family reunion and social integration. The Martelli Law offered immigrants theopportunity to regularize their presence irrespective of their employment status. A totalof 217,000 immigrants regularized their status (Knights 1996, p. 107)

Immigration became a significant issue in the 1990s, leading to the passages of laws in1995 and 1998. The 1995 law involved regularization of 246,000 immigrants (Cesareo2007) and introduced the possibility to become regularized for family reunificationpurposes—a sign of transforming single migration to family and settlement migrationin Italy. The reform law of 1998 also known as Turco-Napolitano law or Testo Unico,



created a three-pillar immigration policy: (a) fighting illegal migration, (b) regulatinglegal migration and (c) integrating resident foreigners (Chaloff 2006, p. 153). Thefirst pillar focussed on bilateral agreements and criminal penalties, the second on aquota system and the third on integration of new immigrants. New immigration forwork was instituted within the national quotas and with either a job offer or “spon-sorship”. The quota system offered work opportunity for non-European migrantsfrom 1 to 3 years.

In 2002, Italy passed the immigration law known as the Bossi-Fini Law that pavedthe way for regularization of more than 700,000 immigrants in the country (Cesareo2007; Chaloff 2006). However, the Bossi-Fini law imposed restrictions on twodomains: entry and the conditions of stay. The quota system emerged as a key toolto meet the demand for labour in the country. The quota system was designed to serveboth source and host countries, as sending countries would benefit from remittancesand Italy from foreign labour. However, soon after the introduction of quota system, itbecame increasingly evident that the quota system was not producing the desiredoutcome. Two common causes are often cited for this failure: limited number of visasallowed under this category (imbalance between demand for labour and supply oflabour) and complicated bureaucratic procedures involved in the quota visa processing(Zanfrini 2003; Chaloff 2006).

The drawback inherent in quota system created a situation where many potentialmigrants found their own way to circumvent bureaucratic restrictions: they sneakedinto Italy irregularly and joined in labour market in order to establish a relationshipwith employers who might be willing to undertake the complicated bureaucraticprocedure necessary for legal entry or to support their application during regulariza-tion drive. When irregular entry in the country remains a challenge for potentialmigrants, availability of work after entering the country and possibility of havingregular immigration status during the frequent regularization derive remain open tothem, providing the adequate incentive for seeking irregular entry in the country. Inaddition to quota, another important channel for regular migration is family reunionvisa. Family reunion visa is allowed to dependents of immigrants, especially spousesand children. The current trend in Italy immigration is the fall of employment visaand the rise of family reunion visa. For instance, between 2007 and 2008, thenumber of visas issued for family reunification rose 39 % from 89,000 to123,000, while entries for employment fell sharply (SOPEMI 2010, p. 214). Thistrend suggests that Italy has entered a new phase from single migration to familyimmigration and settlement.

Bangladeshi migrants in Italy

Bangladeshi emigration to Italy developed, according to King and Knights, as a“form of migratory opportunism provoked by the basic push forces back home and bylax entry controls and regularization drives in Italy” (King and Knights 1994, p. 128).Italy's first three sets of legislations for immigration reform (the laws of 1986, 1990and 1998) played an important role in the emergence of permanent Bangladeshimigrant community in Italy. Of these legislations, the Martelli Law of 1990 provideda huge impetus for Bangladeshi immigration to Italy. According to Knights (1996,



p. 109), the Martelli Law gave rise to three separate immigration processes forBangladeshis: (1) opportunistic migration—Bangladeshis from other countries cameto Italy to seize the opportunity of becoming regular migrants and subsequentlypermanent or renewable residents in Italy; (2) recruitment migration (formal andinformal recruitment business); and finally, (3) family or kinship migration (becauseof adoption of family reunion policy).

Thus, changes in immigration laws in Italy since the mid-1980s created anopportunity for both authorized and unauthorized Bangladeshi migration to Italy.The Bureau of Manpower, Employment, and Training (BMET), a BangladeshGovernment agency in charge of monitoring outflow of authorized migration forwork, has started recording the outflow of Bangladeshis to Italy since 2002. As perthe BMET source, nearly 33,000 migrants went to Italy through authorized channelbetween 2002 and 2010 (Fig. 1). However, Bangladesh Bank which is in charge ofreporting inflow of remittances in Bangladesh started reporting annual inflow ofremittances from Italy to Bangladesh in 2000. As per the Bangladesh Bank, Bangla-deshi migrants remitted nearly one billion dollar from Italy to Bangladesh between2000 and 2010 (Fig. 2). However, before the year 2000, the inflow of remittancesfrom Italy was predominantly through informal channel called hundi—a popularinformal channel of remittances used by global Bangladeshis (Rahman and Yeoh2008). The fear of terrorist-financing after the 9/11 has mainly contributed to theincreasing use of formal channel.

As per the Bangladesh Household Remittance Survey (BHRS), 172 migrants weremales and 5 were females. However, these females were dependent migrants whojoined their spouses in Italy often on dependent visa category. The mean age ofmigrants was 33 years. Although Bangladeshi migration to Italy is predominantlysingle, male migration, it is not necessarily all unmarried, single migrants who joinedin the migration process. In fact, approximately 61 % of migrants were married. Withregard to residence of married migrants' wives, nearly 73 % of the married migrants'wives were living in Bangladesh. In other words, nearly one fourth of migrants' wiveshas so far availed the family reunification programme. However, the rate of familyreunification is relatively low because the reunification visa application is a compli-cated, lengthy procedure.

Nearly 30 % of migrants had graduate and post-graduate credentials before theirmigration to Italy. This educational attainment is exceptionally higher than thoseBangladeshi migrants who are working in Asian countries, for instance, in Saudi

0

2,000

4,000

6,000

8,000

10,000

12,000

2002 2003 2004 2005 2006 2007 2008 2009 2010-

Fig. 1 Outflow of Bangladeshimigrants to Italy, 2002–2010



Arabia. Approximately 3 % of Bangladeshi migrants had graduate degrees in SaudiArabia (n04427) (Rahman 2011, p. 10). In another study, Rahman reports that 7 % ofBangladeshi migrants working in Singapore were graduates (Rahman 2010, p. 270).Thus, it can be safely concluded that Bangladeshis who choose to migrate toEuropean countries are having higher educational credentials than those who areseeking temporary employment in the Middle East and Southeast Asia.

In terms of occupational background, 60 % of migrants were employed and theremaining 40 % were unemployed before their migration to Italy. After migration toItaly, about 10 % were unemployed in Italy. Major categories of occupations that thesemigrants were engaged in Italy include factory work (19%), hotel waiter or cook (14%),general labour (24 %), agricultural labour (4 %), business (15 %) and salesman (4%). Intotal, 45 % of migrants were living in Italy between 1 and 6 years and the remaining55% between 6 and 21 years or more. The duration of stay suggests that both recent andrelatively early migrants, including those who migrated in the late 1980s and 1990s, arenetted in the survey. In fact, 70 % of migrants in the survey were living for less than10 years. The average duration of stay of migrants in Italy was 8 years, which is likely tobe sufficient to offer a clear indication of economic benefits of migration for migranthouseholds left behind.

Channels of Bangladeshi migration to Italy

As discussed earlier, there are three main channels of migration to Italy: irregularmigration, quota system and family reunification. It is important to note that migrantswho eventually ended up in Italy in the 1980s and even 1990s did not necessarilyintended to do so when they first moved to Europe. Many Bangladeshis who wereliving in other parts of Europe on various status such as refugees, students, short-termtrainees and the last but not least irregular migrants chose to settle in Italy because ofItaly's liberal immigration policy and periodic regularization drives. Most Banglade-shi migrants entered Italy clandestinely in the 1980s and 1990s and a good number ofnew immigrants still sneak into the country in an unauthorized way through all threeroutes—air, land and sea.

Migration through irregular channel usually involves the use of more than oneroute in the migration process. It is often combination of air and land or air and seaand sometimes all of the three. In the journey to Italy, potential migrants typically flyto nearby transit country first with a visa but later they become irregular in an attemptto enter Italy through land and sea routes. Bangladeshi migrants often use two land

0

50

100

150

200

250

2000 2001 2002 2003 2004 2005 2006 2007 2008 2009 2010-

Mill

ion

(US

$)

Fig. 2 Inflows of remittancesfrom Italy to Bangladesh2000–2010



routes from the transit country. In the first route, potential migrants fly to South-Eastern Europe and then travel over land to Italy. In the second route, potentialmigrants visit Turkey or North-Eastern European countries and use the area of theformer Yugoslavia as an entry point to Italy. Some popular transit countries arePoland, Hungary, Albania, Rumania, Russia, Turkey, Libya, Tunisia, Morocco andAlgeria.

Irregular migration to Italy through sea borders involves mainly three routes: thecrossing of the Otranto channel (Valona-Lecce coast), the Sicily channel (the coast ofNorth Africa to the Sicilian coast) and the eastern Mediterranean channels (EasternMediterranean ports—Turkey, Egypt, Syria, Lebanon—to Apulia, Calabria and Sicilyroute; for details, see Pastore et al. 2006; King and Knights 1994; UNODC 2010;Knights 1996; Monzini 2007). In the 1980s and 1990s, most Bangladeshis tookTurkey and a few Morocco to come to Italy. However, in the last decade, theoverwhelming majority of Bangladeshis who used sea routes departed mainly fromNorth African countries, especially Libya. As UNODC report suggests, the impor-tance of Libya as a country of transit corresponds to the decrease in the importance ofroutes originating in Albania, Tunisia, and Turkey and to the reduction of flows fromMorocco to Spain migration channel (UNODC 2010, p. 11).

After opening up the immigration policy in the second half of the 1990s, Bangladeshimigrants are allowed to enter Italy under quota visa system. Since 2006, under the quotavisa system, 3,000 Bangladeshis could annually enter Italy for work (IOM 2006,p. 102). In addition to quota visas, family reunification visas are the popular channelfor migration of spouses and children of migrants. Approximately 3,000 familyreunification visas are issued from Italy Embassy in Bangladesh in a year (Zeitlyn2006, p. 22). It is important to note that potential migrants are offered ‘Italy visa’ toland in Italy but not ‘Schengen visa’ that would have offered the right to land at anyEuropean Union country. As a result, all migrants from Bangladesh need to land inItaly first and claim immigration status as per visa offered in Dhaka.

Role of adam baparis in the migration process

Migration to Italy is highly desirable but often inaccessible and unaffordable forpotential Bangladeshi migrants because of lack of access to networks of adambaparis and exorbitant fees that a potential migrant is required to pay in the migrationprocess. This section elaborates the role of adam baparis while the next sectionaddresses the economic cost of migration. The role of adam baparis or intermediariesis crucial to migration occurrence in the Bangladesh–Italy migration corridor. Adambapari is a Bengali term widely used by Bangladeshi migrants and local media torepresent those people who are familiar with migration procedures and cash in on thisfamiliarity, access or connection for economic advantage.

The services of adam bapari are unavoidable in the migration process whether it isregular or irregular migration. A prospective regular migrant requires seeking serv-ices of several adam baparis located at both ends of migration—Bangladesh andItaly. In Italy, they provide services to potential dependent visa or quota visaapplicants. In Bangladesh, they also provide services to both groups of visa applicantsin the area of passport application, air ticket booking, visa application and so on. In



addition to services to formal visa applicants, they also serve irregular migrants byrunning transnational syndicate of irregular migration to Italy (Monzini 2007;UNODC 2010). However, more focused research is needed to understand the trans-national syndicate of irregular migration in the South Asia-Southern Europeanmigration corridor.

However, adam baparis usually emerge from early migrants and their relatives andfriends. The emergence of adam baparis from early migrants and their close-knitgroup makes migration almost a location-specific phenomenon. For instance, thereare 64 districts in Bangladesh but migrants in Italy are predominantly from a fewdistricts such as Faridpur, Comilla, Dhaka and Noakhali. The survey also reveals howimportant the network of relatives and friends are in the migration process. In a responseto a survey question on the people who provided assistance (primarily information andaccess to networks) in their migration to Italy, nearly 77 % of migrants reportedreceiving assistance from relatives and friends in the migration process. This over-whelming support from relatives and friends suggests why migration to Italy is alocation-specific phenomenon in Bangladesh.

To shed light briefly on the monetary benefits that Bangladeshi migration to Italygenerates for adam baparis, this study examines areas of expenses for migration toItaly (Fig. 3). The financial cost of migration to Italy was on average US$10,000 andthis is farther explained in the next section. For convenience, the study divides thefinancial cost of migration into the formal service fees that include government fees,passport fees, travel tax and other fees and the intermediaries' fees that include feesfor adam baparis at different levels and different locations. A detailed investigationon the expenses for migration reveals that formal fees represent on average only 18 %of the financial cost of migration and the intermediaries' fees represent the remaining82 %. In absolute terms, a migrant spent on average nearly US$1,800 for meeting theformal service fees and nearly US$8,200 for meeting the informal service feescharged by adam baparis in the migration process. In the Bangladeshi migration tothe Gulf countries, Rahman also reports almost the similar distribution of expensesacross formal and informal services (Rahman 2011, p. 16). Bangladeshi emigrationthus seems to serve a group of intermediaries who enjoy enormous economic rewardsfrom organizing and facilitating migration of labour internationally.

Financial cost of migration to Italy: (BDT 682,839) US$10,000

Loan 28%

Adam bapari (brokers) fees (82 %)

Contribution of multiple sources to total financial cost of migration

Disbursement

Land 19%

Relatives & friends 33%

Others 12%

Personal Savings 8%

Service Fees and other required expenses (18%)

Fig. 3 Economic cost of migration to Italy



Financing migration to Italy

The expenses incurred in the migration process are referred to financial cost of migra-tion. The financial cost of migration for a Bangladeshi migrant to Italy was on averageBDT 682,839 or approximately US$ 10,000 (as per exchange rate of 2009). Theexpenses for migration varied sharply: the top 27 % of migrants paid more than nearlyUS$ 15,000 and the bottom 27 % paid less than nearly US$ 4,400 (Table 1). Thedifference in the cost of migration can be attributed to several factors: (1) relationshipwith key adam bapari, (2) nature of migration (irregular or regular migration), (3)nature of visa (work visa, student visa, sponsored seasonal worker etc.) and durationof the visa, (4) year of migration to Italy and finally (5) nature of work and potentialwages in Italy. Irregular migration is usually cheaper than regular migration. Earlymigrants who migrated to Italy in the 1980s and 1990s paid relatively small amountof cash compared to new streams of migrants.

Figure 3 presents the economic cost of migration to Italy from a family perspec-tive. The figure maps out two important layers that constitute the economic cost ofmigration such as contribution of multiple sources to the financial cost of migration,and the disbursement of financial cost of migration as formal service fees andintermediary fees. The average cost of migration to Italy was virtually beyond thepersonal and family savings of all migrants. As a result, most migrants had to rely onmultiple sources to accumulate the funds for migration such as personal savings,landed property, loan from money lenders and loan from relatives and friends,personal savings and other sources such as livestock, gold jewellery and so on. Onaverage, land paid off nearly 19 % of the cost of migration and loans from money-lenders accounted for 28 %. Relatives and friends contributed 33 % of the cost,personal savings paid off 8 % and other sources accounted for 12 %. Emigrationundermines family economics in two ways: the outflow of family's income-generating assets hampers family incomes and the loans from moneylenders putpressure on available family resources and use of remittances, as we will see in thenext section.

Family remittances and family dynamics

Remittances are often shown as the most tangible benefit that international migrationgenerates for migrants and their families (Hugo 2003). Financial remittances are

Table 1 Cost of migration toItaly

Bangladesh Household Remit-tance Survey 2009BDT(Bangladesh Taka), Bangladeshicurrency, exchange rateUS$0BDT 68.28 asin the late 2009

Cost of migration (in BDT) Percentages

!150,000 11.3

150,001–300,000 15.8

300,001–500,000 16.7

500,001–700,000 13.7

700,001–1,000,000 15.7

1,000,001 or more 26.8

Total 100.0



commonly categorized as ‘family remittances’ and ‘collective remittances’ (Goldring2004). Family remittance suggests financial flows from individual migrants overseasto their families in source countries while collective remittance denotes financialflows raised by a group of migrants in the remittance-sending countries for thewelfare of a group or community in the remittance receiving countries. Althoughcollective remittance in the form of group contribution to the community cause is alsonoticed in the Italy–Bangladesh remittances corridor, this study is more concernedabout family remittances, that is, individual migrants' financial contribution to theirfamilies and its implications on family dynamics.

The size and frequency of remittances are important variables for the economic take offof the migrant families, especially when migrant households dispossess family resourcesand borrow cash from moneylenders to finance their migration ventures. The size of theremittances is contingent on the monthly incomes of the migrants overseas. Therefore,this study investigates the monthly remuneration of migrants from family perspective.However, this study does not deny the weakness of investigating individual migrants'wages to their families in Bangladesh but stresses the fact that many migrants indeedshare their wages with their immediate family members in a traditional society. Onaverage, the monthly remuneration of the migrants was reported BDT 70,680 (US$1,050). This amount is several times higher than a job would have offered inBangladesh. On average, migrants remitted approximately 3.5 times in a year. Theaverage amount of remittances at a time was BDT 36,979 or nearly US$ 550. Ifaverage remittances and frequency of remittances are multiplied, a migrant householdreceived on average approximately US$ 1,900 in a year. In other words, an Italymigrant household had US$1,900 as remittances for disposal in a year.

Having investigated the annual inflow of remittances, this study moved further toexamine the use of remittances at the family level (Table 2). The use of remittances isan important indicator for family development dynamics. Migrant families used thefunds for a myriad of purposes, starting from family basic expenses (food andclothing mainly) to religious festivals such as Eid-ul-Fitr and Eid-ul-Azha. The fivemajor areas of use of remittances, as per frequency of uses, are family expenses,followed by medical treatment, education, repayment of debts, religious festivals. Asper frequency, 85 % of households used remittances for family basic expenses, 29 %for medical treatment, 19 % for education, 17 % for repayment of debts and finally12 % for religious festivals.

The reason behind overwhelming use of remittances for family basic necessities isnot surprising; migration is a family-funded project and involves pooling of existingfamily resources that curtails family's ability to finance basic necessities. Remittancesincrease the ability of households to spend on basic necessities. However, in terms ofuse of remittances for medical treatment, we need to highlight the health care systemin Bangladesh. Public health care system in Bangladesh is not adequate to meet therising demand from rapidly growing population. Apart from this, the quality of publichealth care is much poorer than that of private health care (Andaleeb 2000). This hasforced people to seek private health care which usually caters the needs of theprivileged sections of the society. Since migrant families had access to disposableresources, many of them sought private health care for better treatment.

In a separate set of questions on the impact of use of remittances on familydynamics, this study discerns that remittances have some visible impacts on the



migrant families in terms of food consumption, educational attainment and localincome generation. Nearly 72 % of families reported having improved food con-sumption and nearly 59 % reported having enhanced educational opportunities.However, the role of remittances in income generation was mixed. Nearly 39 % ofmigrant families reported an increase in incomes through generating new sources ofincomes. However, given the percentage of recent migrants in the sample, it is notsurprising to see the low use of remittances for income generation. Going back toAmartya Sen's argument that development is a process of increasing the freedoms ofpeople, the proximate determinants of the basic freedom that Sen suggests werehealth, education and income. Looking at the spheres of remittance use, especiallyhealth, education and income, it is obvious that migration-induced earnings (remit-tances) played substantial role to increase the opportunities of migrant families in anabsolute term.

Conclusion

This paper has attempted to provide insights into the Bangladeshi migration to Italyand its implications on families left behind. Of the Southern European countries, Italypursued a liberal policy for migrants from non-European countries as early as the1980s by introducing the regularization initiative for unauthorized migrants. In the1990s and 2000s, immigration laws were gradually reformed to meet the demand forforeign labour under quota system, to invite the dependents of regularized immigrantsunder family reunion category, and finally to integrate the new immigrants into thesociety with more rights and privileges. The regularization derives and subsequentchanges in immigration laws paved the way for emergence of many non-Europeanmigrant communities in Italy including Bangladeshi community. The size of theBangladeshi community grew substantially over the time through irregular migration,recruitment migration (labour migration) and family reunion migration.

Table 2 Use of remittances at thehousehold

Bangladesh Household Remit-tance Survey, 2009The percen-tages are based on multipleresponses and therefore do notadd to 100

Expenditure of remittance money Percentages

For family's basic expenses 84.89

Purchase of land/property 2.88

Paying of debts 17.27

Savings 8.63

Construction/repairing of house 6.47

Repossession of mortgaged land 0.72

For running a business 0.72

Sending brother abroad 0.72

Marrying off brother/sister 2.16

Education of children 19.42

Medical treatment 29.50

Eid (Muslim religious) festivals 12.23

Others 3.60



This study has shed light on the routes of immigration for both early and recentBangladeshi immigrants. In the 1980s and 1990s, Bangladeshi migration was largelyirregular and a response to the opportunity created by frequent regularization derives andimmigration law reforms in Italy. Migration through irregular channels usually com-prised of combination of air and land or air and sea and sometimes all of three. To put theroutes on order, in the early 1980s most migrants took air route and land route while inthe 1990s and the 2000s, land and sea routes emerge as dominant channels for irregularBangladeshi migration to Italy. For authorized migration since the late 1990s, thepredominant route of travel has been air route. In the immigration process, the keyplayers who facilitate regular and irregular migration are popularly called adam baparis(intermediaries) in Bangladesh. They cash in on their familiarity to the routes, accessto Italy labour market and connection with local bureaucracy. The profit that migra-tion generates for adam baparis is around 82 % of financial cost of migration.

The financial cost of migration to Italy is reported on average US$ 10,000. Asinternational migration is often a family strategy, family uses all available resourcesincluding selling and mortgaging of arable land, borrowing from money lenders andextended family members. Inflow of remittances to migrant families represents theloyalty to and solidarity with families left behind. The average amount of remittanceswas nearly US$ 550 and the frequency of remittances in a year was 3.5 times. In otherwords, a migrant household received on average approximately US$ 1,900 asremittances. Migrant households used this disposable resource for myriad purposesstarting from basic consumption to religious and cultural ceremonies. This studyreports some visible impacts of the use of remittances on food consumption, educa-tion, health care and local income generation. Presenting the wide spectrums of use ofremittances, this study argues that remittances increase the opportunities of migrantfamilies and contribute to their well-being.

This study should be seen as an early attempt to explicate the Bangladeshimigration to Italy and its implications on migrant families. While this study offersvaluable insights into Bangladeshi migration to Italy, more research is requiredadopting two-way surveys—Italy and Bangladesh—and ethnographic fieldwork forbetter understanding of the migration and settlement process in Italy and theirimplications on families left behind in Bangladesh.

Acknowledgments Author wishes to thank International Organisation for Migration (IOM) – Dhaka,Bangladesh for providing access to dataset on ‘Bangladesh Household Remittance Survey’. Special thanksgo to Rabab Fatima, Regional Representative, IOM-Dhaka, Samiha Huda and Disha Sonata Faruque, alsoof IOM-Dhaka, provided support and were a joy to work with.

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Bangladeshi Migration to Italy

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