Migration as a Risky Enterprise: A Diagnostic for Bangladesh

Abstract

We provide a quantitative diagnostic of attempts by Bangladeshi workers at migrating to foreign countries and the risks that they face in doing so. We show that migration failures may be as high as one-third of attempts at migrating, with large financial losses for households with an aspiring migrant. Using a duration model, we find that success in migrating is associated with a current higher national migration, larger village migration network, and urban residence. We also find that in spite of the high cost of failure, there are still large expected gains from trying to migrate.