Do female labor-migrated households have lower productivity? Empirical evidence from rural rice farms in Bangladesh

The labor movement from rural areas and the remittance flow from migrants is a common household livelihood strategy in rural Bangladesh. While migration can offer economic benefits through remittances, it can be a source of hardship for migrants and their families due to societal culture. This study examines the differences in farm productivity and technical efficiency between female and male labor migrants by focusing on female and male laborers who have lived away from their homes for 6 months or more within the country and its reflection on farm production. Using data on 2271 rice plots from Bangladesh Integrated Households Survey in 2018, we estimate plot-level stochastic meta-frontier approach for households with female-labor migrants and male-labor migrants separately emphasizing technological difference and heteroskedastic technical efficiency. The empirical result shows that the female-labor migrants' farms have 10.3% lower production frontier (maximum frontier yield) and 6.1% higher technical efficiency than male migrants' farms, indicating that they have 4.2% lower productivity. Lower production frontier reflects lower management ability and less attention to farm practice. Moreover, the study reveals that female-labor migrants' farms are closer to the meta-frontier, suggesting smaller technology gaps. However, some farmers failed to achieve the highest possible output in relation to the meta-frontier, indicating that farmers can boost their production by adopting and disseminating new rice production technology.