A study has been conducted previously, there the study team examined the potential of mobile banking technologies for facilitating risk-sharing and insurance in the context of Bangladesh, a country that began to adopt mobile banking technologies in 2010. partnering with Gana Unnayan Kendra (GUK), a local non-governmental organization that works to train garment workers and place them in jobs in Dhaka, the team provided mobile banking accounts to a sample of GUK-affiliated workers to assess whether the technology improves their ability to provide resources to their families in rural Bangladesh, particularly through the annual pre-harvest seasonal famine, called the long season Seasonal variability in incomes, as well as the relatively higher incomes in factory jobs in Dhaka, provides the impetus for migration for many workers, and we test whether facilitating transfers through the mobile money platform improves the ability of recipient households to reduce food consumption variability, and improves recipient household members health, through the difficult famine season. Comparing the outcomes of these bKash-enabled families (the “treatment” group) to those unaffected by the intervention (the “control” group) enabled the team to cleanly estimate the impacts of mobile money on the ability of households to insure themselves against the large seasonal variation in incomes to which they are typically exposed.
The survey round in 2016 showed that digitally connecting very poor households in rural Bangladesh to migrants from their households in Dhaka (via access to bKash) increased remittance flows from Dhaka to rural Bangladesh by 26%, reducing extreme poverty, and increased consumption by7%in the rural areas. lt also improved conditions during the lean season. The intervention was a 30 to 45-minute training on how to sign-up, technical assistance to use the service and if requested, help with gathering documentation and completing the application form to sign-up. As part of the long-run follow-up study, the team would now like to go back to the same households who were part of this Randomised Control Trial (RCT). Like the previous survey rounds, the team collected information on household and individual characteristics and consumption, and expenditures, including health expenditures. This survey generated important evidence on the long-run effects of facilitating mobile money transfers to improve living conditions for the recipient in Bangladesh. The long-run follow-were conducted on all participants in Lee et al (2018), as far as they can be tracked. The survey had two parts, a phone survey to identify household members and track movements, and an in-person survey. For the phone survey, in the case, that a phone number is not reachable, dRi visited the origin village of the migrants to get the updated phone number for tracking.
Serial No: 250
Theme: Migration and Human Rights
Research Method: Quantitative
Partner: New York University
Starting Year: 2023
Study Area: Dhaka-Magura, Dhaka-Noakhali, Dhaka-Kishoregonj, Chittagong-Rangamati, and Dhaka-Pirojpur
