Different but the Same: How Legal Status Affects International Migration from Bangladesh

This article builds on prior studies that document how legal status stratifies society, specifically in outcomes related to international migration. Here, we study such outcomes in Bangladesh, a low-lying nation that has experienced dramatic environmental changes in recent decades and high rates of out-migration. We do event history analyses of a new and unique dataset that includes information from approximately eighteen hundred households in nine villages to investigate whether and how legal status differentiates out-migration from Bangladesh. We find substantial variation in legal status among the women and men who make an initial international trip and that unauthorized migration affects other labor market and economic outcomes: it reduces the number of hours that migrants work in destination countries, lowers the odds that migrants pay taxes or open a bank account, and increases the odds that migrants use social contacts to find jobs.