Ethnographic insights on the livability of migrant ready-made garment workers in peri-urban Bangladesh

Abstract

Globally, low-income migrant households, particularly female laborers from urban areas, often have unrealistic lifestyle visions due to their inter-generational poverty in rural areas. However, millions of female ready-made garments (RMG) workers in Bangladesh, unable to tackle inherited poverty and marginalization, often arrive in Dhaka, the capital city known for its garment industry, with unrealistic aspirations. The study is an exploration how is the livability of these fighters of the economy in their new destination. This study introduces agency and power dynamics in assessing the urban livability of migrant RMG women in Bangladesh along with objective and subjective indicators using the qualitative data analysis. The study's data was gathered between June and November of 2022. The findings of this study revealed that migrant female workers face significant challenges in supporting their lives and are often subjected to unfavorable stereotypes. In addition to objective deprivation in terms of access to basic services (like water, energy, waste management, education, health, recreation, and public transport), they always feel severe social inferiority, lower self-esteem, low level of social safety and security, and identity crisis for which they would not even like to take part in the governance mechanism. They face psycho-social stress, for which they feel socially excluded, marginalized, and isolated, which tends to their lower social position. The key message here is that even after attaining some level of improvement in their objective aspects of urban livability, migrant women are more likely to face subjective experiences that jeopardize their urban livability in Dhaka city.