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Synopsis This study, which incorporates extensive primary data, centres on the expectations of migrants in the city of Dhaka, Bangladesh. The research findings of this book suggest that key hypotheses put forward to explain migration, are not entirely satisfactory. Although migrants experience an economic need, by no means all are reacting solely to that economic necessity. Nor are all migrants in possession of transferable skills, or entrepreneurial. Many migrants in the study tend to be illiterate, unskilled and even old and handicapped. They are ill equipped for the city, and it is paradoxical therefore that they should migrate. Yet they migrate with expectations of a better life. It is these expectations which are focused upon, as the primary objective in the study. A further objective is the mapping out of an appropriate theoretical framework. Theoretical and empirical studies in the migration literature reveal that the issue of poor migrants has not been adequately addressed. New investigation was required into the reasons why migrants are continuing to move to a life of poverty in the city.