Social inequality frames in Bangladesh can be describe in different angles including region, income, gender, education, land ownership and social opportunities. As an emerging country Bangladesh is remained at the early stage of Kuznets curve where inequality on the societal level is persistent. It is major obstacle of Bangladesh to progress sustainably. The country is mainly experiencing four kinds of inequalities, such as economic inequality, unfair distribution of basic needs, gender inequality, and access to land and opportunities for progressing towards United Nation’s SDGs goals. Therefore, the following subsections represent the three major elements in framing social inequality in Bangladesh.
Disparity in wealth and income among different communities is simply called economic inequality. Economic inequality can be measured by Gini index. Since 1990s Bangladesh is observing a rising trend of Gini index which indicates that inequality has been on the up. The both income and expenditure pattern from 2010 to 2016 in rural and urban areas are significantly different (BBS, 2017). This rural-urban income differential is widened more starkly day-by-day even though the levels of income have increased. The head count rural poverty rate in rural area is 15% and upper poverty line 26%, which is 8% and 19% in urban areas. The dependency rate is 60% in urban areas and 78% in rural areas (BBS, 2016). But the interesting findings from Sadekin (2021) stated that the rate of poverty is decreasing faster in rural areas of Bangladesh. Because relatively young people of Bangladesh are migrating rapidly to urban regions for finding jobs and ends with miserable livelihoods. Moreover, Bangladesh is prone to extreme climatic events like, flood, drought, cyclones etc. and thus, it is observed sudden increases of migration level. The National Geographic (2019) stated that slums in urban areas will have to host increasing numbers of climate migrants from rural regions of Bangladesh. The International Organisation of Migration (IOM) has assessed that Bangladesh might lose 18 percent of its total land area if sea levels rise by 1 meter, while also mentioning that the inflow of migrants to cities like Dhaka is a likely possibility. In 2019, it was estimated that Dhaka, the capital city, was home to about 3,400 slums and over half a million slum dwellers (The Daily Star, 2019). Given the circumstances, the city areas of Bangladesh are experiencing rising inequalities. Byron and Rahman (2021) reported that only 1 percent of population holds 16.3 percent of total national income whereas the bottom half holds 17.1 percent. The ‘World Inequality Report 2022’ showed that only 10 percent of the population in Bangladesh holds 44 percent of total national income. This indicates high economic inequality in Bangladesh. In urban areas the high income groups usually come from business, professional and non-earners (rental, remittance and savings) whereas rural richest are businesses and non-earners. The day laborers and small businesses are the poorest groups in Bangladesh.
Unequal Distribution of Basic Needs in Bangladesh
There is a constitutional statement of Bangladesh in article 15 that the state is responsible to guarantee the access to the basic needs for all the people of the country. But in terms of food intake, access to health, and education, the country is always failing to distribute its resources fairly. The country is almost fair in food intake by calorie measures among rural and urban or male and female but it differs when we talk about the quality and nutritious consumption. It is undoubted true that poor have less access to health services than rich. Khan et al. (2011) reported inequality of maternal and general health care facilities. They mentioned that poorest 20% of women are nearly three times less likely to have received antenatal care (ANC) and nearly six times less likely to have a skilled attendant at birth. Almost half of the rural people are still taking medical services from the traditional health care. Moreover, the urban people have more access to drug stores, nurses and physicians than rural people. There is a clear evidence of inequitable distribution of health workforce. Ahmed et al. (2015) argued that although 65% of the population lives in rural areas, the distribution of qualified health professionals are greatly urban biased. The rural people are mostly dependent on the unqualified or semi qualified village doctors and community health workers. It is also important to mention that all the significant health facilities are centralized in urban areas of Bangladesh.
In case of education facilities, it is open secret that the richest groups are getting better education than poorest groups in Bangladesh. The net enrolment rate in primary and secondary education is lower for the poor children than non-poor. In Bangladesh, access to tertiary education is profoundly limited for the poorest groups because of high school dropout rate, cost, and competition. As there is a strong correlation between livelihood opportunities and level of education, the widening gaps in education are creating greater inequalities in society. Education inequality is basically the result of poor governance, biases and weaknesses in accountability (Al-Samari, 2008). The study also notes that the urban poor are usually unable to access basic necessities such as education and health care services. Such findings imply that there exist low-income populations of Bangladesh who experience indistinguishable difficulties whether they are based in urban or rural regions.
Gender Inequality in Bangladesh
Gender inequality in Bangladesh is persistent as there are patriarchal structure and social institutions, lack of policy initiatives, certain deeply rooted cultural values and mind set and early marriage (Ferdaush and Rahman, 2011). Gender inequality is seen in both enrolment and school dropout. Although female literacy rate is increased recently due to policy initiatives, the female dropout is still a major concern in Bangladesh. Gender inequality is also high in tertiary-level education. Regarding employment status, there are disparity between male and female. BBS (2013) estimated that the rate of female employment is less than half of their male counterparts. Women in Bangladesh are generally engaged in craft and in agriculture, forestry and fisheries but men are dominating in service sectors and in plants or machine-operating occupations. Female child marriage and mortality rate is high in the poorest groups of Bangladesh.
Unequal Distribution of Land and Social Opportunities
There are very limited access of poor communities in Bangladesh to the public land and local social opportunities. Bangladesh economy can be attributable as the legacy of anti-poor political economy and poor governance. Because almost all the available public lands (agricultural and non-agricultural) are occupied by land grabbers and politically influential people (Barkat, 2004). There are limited land rights for women based on religion and ethnicity. In Muslim community, women have less access and rights to inherit property whereas in Hindu community women have no right to inherit. Moreover, there exists inter- and intra-regional inequality in the distribution of public goods and services. For example, rural people have lower access to market and community resources.
Conclusion
Bangladesh is heading through a stunning growth in recent years. But it is often proved that the country is growing without equity. At this phase, the country is supposed to be experiencing very high employment growth, investment, and a higher standard of living, but what it is experiencing, instead, is growing inequality, credit crunch, rampant corruption, massive outflow of money, etc. Therefore, this essay tries to represent the framework of social inequality in Bangladesh. In discussing social inequality, it is found that Bangladesh is doing better to reduce poverty but there are significant differences between poor and non-poor, rural and urban people, race and within religions in terms of income, employment, land ownership education, food intake and health, resources and social opportunities.
Therefore, it is a formidable challenge for Bangladesh to reduce inequality. Due to trickle-down effect of the country’s growth benefit may help people to come out of extreme poverty but most of the resources have been concentrating among few rich people. Moreover, government of Bangladesh is allocating its resources more to the sector of export promotion, re-financing government banks and there are also case of monetary misuse but it is witnessed a significant reduction of budgetary allocation in education, health and other common pro-poor development activities. By considering the overall situation, it is recommended to reshape government policies towards the distribution of the gains from growth for reducing social inequality. Moreover, policies should be reshaped within different context, such as vulnerable groups should be given priority, creating income generation opportunity for the extreme poor, social safety net programmes, better public health services, vocational education and job-oriented training may be effective policy options for reducing social inequality in Bangladesh.
Frequently Asked Questions and Answers:
What is the framework of inequality?
The framework of inequality is across seven key aspects of life which overall determine the capability for people to enjoy a good quality of life, (MIF) provides a systematic approach to measuring and analysing inequalities.
What are the main points of inequality?
FAQ Of Inequalities:
- If a > b and b > c, then a > c.
- If a < b and b < c, then a < c.
- If a ≥ b and b ≥ c, then a ≥ c.
- If a ≤ b and b ≤ c, then a ≤ c.
How to solve gender inequality in Bangladesh ?
World Vision Bangladesh Gender seeks to pursue its call and aspiration through three intervention strategies:
- Decreasing the level of violence against women and nurturing its victims.
- Reducing discrimination and ensuring equal access to services.
- Fostering equality in decision-making.