Rural-to-Urban Migration and Realization of Expected Better Life in Bangladesh: An Empirical Study in Rajshahi City Corporation

Rural-urban migration is a natural process by which migrants migrate from less developed places of origin to more developed destinations in search of a better quality of life. The main objective of this study is to evaluate the realization of an expected better life and to recognize the determinants that are considered helpful in achieving a better life for migrants in Bangladesh that contribute significantly. A cross-sectional sample survey was conducted on the households of the migrants selected using a three-stage cluster sampling technique to obtain the information necessary for the study. The results suggest that it was the pull factors that motivated more than two-thirds of migrants to move from rural to urban areas. Nearly 95 per cent of migrants migrated to destination areas in search of a better life. Realizing a better quality of life was associated statistically significantly with income, occupation, educational qualification, accessibility to health care services, transportation system, and housing facilities in the places of destination. The logistic regression analysis showed that the realization of a better life was more in migrants engaged in service, who belonged to the higher-income groups (more than BDT 15000 per month), who had easy access to specialist health care physicians/hospitals, and who lived close to supportive, highly committed to social welfare, and disciplined neighbors. So, a desirable combination of these supporting components may help migrants achieve their better life goals.