Proceedings of the 8th International Academic Conference on Research in Social Sciences
Year: 2024
DOI:
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“I Just Earn Here But Have No Family Life”: Experiences of Bangladeshi Migrants Living in Dublin
M. Altaf Hossain
ABSTRACT:
Moving to a different country with family members varies according to the migrants’ immigration status in the receiving countries. Those who are mainly capable of selling their physical labour cannot financially afford to do so and are not entitled to migrate with family members. Leaving behind homes, communities, relatives and friends, they migrate abroad for a new hope—income security, a new home, and a better education for children. Living in Europe for non-European migrants requires sacrificing family lives. The physical labour of migrants is economically valued, but it is important to understand that a sustainable economy cannot be established without considering the labourers’ family reunification. Without family reunification, migrants’ family members are deprived of enjoying lives in the receiving countries where migrants invest his or her labour and time. Family reunification is important for integration and well-being. This paper intends to illustrate how immigration policies and migrants’ economic and visa status play a significant role in the family reunification of Bangladeshi migrants to Dublin, Ireland. The prevailing housing precarity adds more complexities to the application for family reunification. The legal barriers to family reunification leave migrants in transnational lives, uncertainties, mental stress and despair. The study’s early findings based on qualitative data indicate that migrants’ right to family life is structurally ignored.
keywords: Migration, labour, family reunification, migrant’s rights, structured discrimination