Long before a migrant leaves Bangladesh, a family begins weighing hope against uncertainty.
How much will the journey cost? What must be borrowed or sold? How will the household manage until money starts coming home?
Beyond the prospect of better schooling, medical care and a more secure future, migrants must confront a complex calculation. The individual who departs carries the family’s expectations, while those who stay assume loan repayments, caregiving responsibilities and the anxiety of an uncertain journey.
A 73‑year‑old father, a former migrant who spent five years working in Saudi Arabia, illustrates the dilemma. He now has two sons living in Italy and another in Kuwait. According to his account, families in his community are mobilising between Tk30 million and Tk40 million to fund irregular journeys to Europe, drawing on savings, loans, land sales and mortgages.
The figures represent a locally reported range rather than a national estimate. Nonetheless, they illustrate how a migration decision can jeopardise years of accumulated assets and future income.
The International Organization for Migration’s 2026 Asia‑Pacific Migration Data Report frames these household pressures within a broader regional context.
Bangladesh remains a major source of migrants and a significant recipient of remittances, while confronting changing labour markets, hazardous migration routes and extended periods of displacement. Together, these observations prompt the question of how much security migration actually provides to the individuals who fund and pursue it.
In 2024, an estimated 8.7 million international migrants from Bangladesh were living abroad. Remittances constitute the country’s second‑largest source of foreign‑exchange earnings, after exports, which are dominated by ready‑made garments.
Preliminary World Bank estimates project remittances to total $33.9 billion in 2025, roughly 7 % of gross domestic product. While these calendar‑year figures remain subject to revision, they underscore the importance of migrants’ earnings to the economy.
For families, such transfers provide food, medical treatment, school fees and the chance to save. However, a remittance does not automatically translate into higher living standards, as a significant share often goes directly to lenders.
Some households fund migration by borrowing from several locally operating micro‑finance institutions, as well as from relatives and informal lenders. The loans are often taken out in the names of different household members, creating multiple repayment obligations that depend on a single expected source of income: the migrant’s future earnings.
The instalments are not contingent on the receipt of that income; a migrant may still be travelling, stranded in transit or awaiting work when repayment schedules begin. In some cases, they spend extended periods in broker‑controlled accommodation, including facilities sometimes described as “game rooms,” while they wait for onward movement.
Conditions vary, but uncertain departures, additional payment demands, and limited communication can leave families with little control over events.
Even after arriving, migrants do not automatically receive financial relief. They require stable employment, regular wages and sufficient net income after living costs to remit money to relatives. In the meantime, family members must meet installment payments from current earnings, savings or additional borrowing. Expenditures on health care, education and food can be constrained, and assets intended to secure the family’s future may be liquidated to meet urgent obligations.
Financial pressure is coupled with emotional strain for migrants, and even a delayed telephone call can trigger fears of detention, exploitation or a hazardous crossing. Many migrants feel compelled to press on because their families have made substantial investments in their journey.
Relatives may consent to additional payments, fearing that refusal could jeopardise the traveller’s safety or waste the funds already spent. Such pressures merit attention from migration services.
The father’s testimony illustrates why warnings by themselves often prove insufficient: young people weigh their precarious local prospects against the houses, land and businesses that prosperous migrants have obtained. Accounts of success spread through relatives, neighbours and social‑media channels, while the realities of failed trips and lingering debts remain comparatively hidden.
Families are navigating decisions in this social context. Their readiness to assume risk should not be interpreted as apathy toward that risk. Where local opportunities are scarce and conventional routes remain hard to reach, a dangerous proposition can appear compellingly attractive. Genuine choice, however, depends on the availability of credible alternatives.
The International Organization for Migration (IOM) report shows that existing overseas labour opportunities are highly vulnerable to changes abroad. Registered overseas labour outflows reached approximately 1.13 million in 2025, falling short of the 2023 peak.
Departures to Malaysia dropped to 3,451, about a 99 % decline from 2023 levels. Outflows to the United Arab Emirates fell by 70 % compared with 2024, and only 671 departures to Oman were recorded. Growth in other destinations partly offset these contractions.
Prospective workers may see their prepaid arrangements suspended as a result of such changes. In September, reports noted that workers heading to Malaysia were still awaiting clarification on costs, required medical examinations and scheduled departure dates, underscoring the impact.
Reopening a labour market is meaningful only if workers can secure verified employment through transparent procedures and have access to remedies when recruitment does not succeed.
Bangladesh is urging stronger accountability throughout the recruitment chain. Workers must receive clear contracts, itemised charges, receipts and reliable verification of employers. Recruitment agencies are required to answer for any intermediaries acting on their behalf, and complaints should trigger prompt investigations with refunds or compensation where justified.
A phased shift toward employer‑paid recruitment should be made a diplomatic priority, officials said. Lenders are urged to assess a household’s total obligations rather than evaluating each loan separately. Financing for verified overseas employment ought to incorporate repayment arrangements that reflect the time needed for workers to begin earning. Debt counselling, appropriate restructuring and psychosocial support should be available when recruitment fails or workers experience exploitation.
Data on European migration routes underscore the urgency of the reforms. In 2025, 24,318 irregular arrivals from Asia to Europe were recorded as Bangladeshi, representing roughly 52 % of the regional total. Bangladeshis also accounted for three quarters of Asian arrivals on the Central Mediterranean corridor.
On the Eastern Mediterranean route, recorded Bangladeshi arrivals rose sharply, increasing from 1,133 in 2024 to 3,831 in 2025.
The report documents sea voyages departing Libya for Italy and, increasingly, from eastern Libya to the Greek islands of Crete and Gavdos. It also records the movement of Bangladeshi migrants transiting through the Western Balkans. These journeys may blend ordinary travel to transit nations with irregular onward crossings, and each interruption can extend family anxiety while loan obligations persist.
Bangladesh’s diplomatic efforts must tackle the conditions encountered along these migration routes. Ongoing focus is needed on rescue operations, legal assistance, maintaining family contact and recovering wages.\n\nIndividuals travelling through irregular channels should be afforded humane treatment and protection, while return arrangements must take personal circumstances into account and reintegration programmes should address health needs, indebtedness and employment prospects.
Training programmes must be more closely linked to employment, a view echoed in a consultation published on September 28 in The Daily Star, which identified weak connections between skills initiatives and available jobs and noted challenges in obtaining foreign recognition for qualifications. The consultation recommended that training be aligned with verified labour‑market demand, incorporate practical skills and language preparation, and be evaluated on the basis of placement rates, earnings and job‑retention outcomes.
Migration policy must also consider those who remain at home, as spouses and grandparents frequently assume additional caregiving responsibilities, and the education of children and the well‑being of older people require support. Women accounted for only 6 % of recorded labour outflows in 2025; they need affordable training, safe accommodation and effective protection against harassment and exploitation.
Displacement adds another layer of insecurity, with an IOM nationwide assessment conducted with the government estimating 4.96 million disaster-related internally displaced people as of October 2025. Around 63% of this population had been displaced before April 2020. This enduring population is distinct from the 105,000 new disaster-related displacement events recorded in 2025.
Housing, education, healthcare, and livelihood assistance must address that duration. Furthermore, climate diplomacy should seek adaptation and loss-and-damage financing that supports communities’ choices regarding whether to remain, relocate, or rebuild.
Bangladesh should measure the success of migration through recruitment costs, household debt, wage recovery, and family well-being, alongside remittance receipts. Furthermore, migrants and their families must help shape that assessment.
A family borrowing to finance migration is investing in hope. Public institutions and international partnerships should help ensure that the hope survives the journey and becomes security when earnings finally come home.
Iqbal Ehsan is a development professional and researcher. Email: ehsan656@gmail.com.
Why it matters
The article underscores how migration's economic benefits are offset by household debt and irregular migration risks, urging policy reforms to protect migrants and their families.