Rural-Urban Migration and Its Causes and Consequences on Migrant Street Hawker in Khulna City

Abstract

Migration is a natural process where mainly over plus manpower released from the rural sector is needed for urban industrial growth. Rural-Urban migration affects development in both urban and rural areas in developing countries like Bangladesh. This study focuses on establishing the main causes and consequences of the movement of people from rural to urban areas and, also concentered on the analysis of major factor for migration to Khulna. To carry out this quantitative study method was adopted and 60 migrant street hawkers were selected using purposing sampling method in the study. Thus, the data obtained from the respondents were analysed for findings. This study revealed that as one of the essential informal sector; street hawker's activities in Khulna are increasing with increasing rate of rural to urban migration. It has been found that with the increase in the number of street hawkers in the urban areas in recent years, the situation is linked to the massive rural to urban migration. The study revealed that migrants came to Khulna in search of employment and to utilise urban services and education. And finding no suitable work, they join in the informal economy of Khulna city as a street hawker. This study also showed that street hawker is becoming an excellent opportunity to rural poor for making a living in the urban areas which are better than their rural life. The livelihoods of the migrant hawker, as compared with their previous occupation, have increased after getting involved in the street hawker. Comparing access to assets before and after migration shows migrant hawker have improved their financial and human capital assets by getting better access to physical and financial capital assets than before. Besides, there are confrontations between authorities and hawkers over licensing, taxation and encroachment of public places and pavements