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Individualism and its Implication for the Economy of Bangladesh
Zobayer Ahmed |
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Individualism is an integral part of westernization and modernization. This is however derived from capitalism. Throughout the century, western development and growth models are prescribed by different donor countries and agencies for the developing countries in the world. Nevertheless, these models are pro-capitalist and Eurocentric. These are less applicable for the developing countries in the world. Because, the socio-economic background of the developing countries are not identical to the developed countries. Moreover, western thought and philosophy are not applicable to the developing world or third world countries to a great extend. Western ideology brings economic loss through socio-cultural thrashing.
Through modernization theories, western values, norms, culture and life styles are being adopted by different developing countries around the globe. It creates enormous losses to the society and economy of those particular countries. Bangladesh is a prime example in this regard. The origin of this loss is a potential threat from remittance earnings.
The economy of Bangladesh largely depends on remittance, since millions of its population stay in different parts of the earth. They send remittance, the major share of their income to their family staying at home. In last two and half years, one million and sixty seven thousand Bangladeshis found their job abroad. Now, 7.5 million Bangladeshis are working in different countries, which consist of 12.7 percent labor of the total labor force. Total remittance sent by migrant workers was UD $10 billion in 2010, which consists 11 percent of total GDP. Migrant people contribute in host country’s economy as well as their home countries. Any economy, which is capable of using the whole potential labor forces, can develop rapidly. Labor forces only serve their country directly, if they got job at home. But in case of Bangladesh, more than 5% of the potential labor force is unemployed and 28.7% is under-employed (MES, 2009). This situation bound the people to seek for job outside. As a result, unskilled (a large number of), semi-skilled and skilled (a few) Bangladeshi had to migrate.
Remittance inflow has impacts mostly on the socio-economic fabric of rural Bangladesh. Migrants’ household now got opportunities to expand their choices in health care, education, food etc. The impact of remittance on land is also noticeable in countryside. It influenced the local land ownership scenario. It increased credit availability to both associated and non-associated households. Due to growing earnings of migrant households, they are now in control of neighboring land market. In one hand, remittance plays vital role in foreign currency earnings; on the other, massive migration from rural area brings the anxiety of labor supply crisis in agriculture sector.
Remittance also boosts up the official reserve of the country. Bangladesh Bank, the central bank of Bangladesh keeps a minimum reserve of foreign currency to pay the import bills for at least three month. Moreover, Bangladesh is an import oriented country and the foreign currency received from exports of goods and services is not adequate enough to pay the import bill. Hence the country largely depends on the remittance in this regard.
One of the major reasons behind sending this remittance is the family tie. In our joint families, individual is sent to overseas employment to raise the household income. Culturally we are still familiar with the joint family as well as extended family and most of the households enjoy the advantages of joint family. In a joint family, a member of the family staying abroad feels responsibility to his/her family members. As a result they send lion share of their income to their family for household expenditure and investment. Even whenever they require marriage, they return home and choose their life partner according to the preference of their family. They never think to establish their career leaving other family members in isolation. This is an in general trend; however, it is being changed in recent years through development of individualism in our society due to modernization and westernization.
Western ideology and culture breaks our joint family structure and the number of nuclear family is increasing day by day. The quicker a society moves towards westernization, the more individualism flourishes in that society. Since Bangladesh is following western development path, the rate of growing individualism is higher and people are getting more and more isolated. If the trend persists, the economy of Bangladesh will suffer a lot in the long run from lack of remittances. The more individualism is flourished the lower remittance will be sent to the home for the family members, rather the expatriates will try to shift their nuclear family to the country where they stay. Moreover, for their marriage they might consider foreign grooms more than the domestic counterparts. It will affect the remittance and the country will suffer from shortage of foreign currency. This will eventually affect the balance of payment of the country and a devaluation of domestic currency.
In addition to this, individualism induces a substantial spending in luxurious goods since the earning person of a nuclear family does not require his income to be shared with his family members as the family no longer remains a joint one. As a result the income inequality further increases in the society. On the other hand, low income inequality or a more equitable distribution of income is also an indicator of development of a country.
For the sake of our development we should define our own course of development plan rather than an imitation of western development. The indigenous culture must be protected to boost up the economy in an indigenous way. We should seek some alternative ways to protect the declining trend of our family tie and other social networks as well.
Writer: From Dept. of Development Studies at the University of Dhaka
E-mail : ahmadzobayer@yahoo.com |
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| http://www.sonarbangladesh.com/articles/ZobayerAhmed |
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