Migration and gender

Latin America and the Caribbean, from the early 1950s starts a change of orientation of international migration with an emigration trend as a consequence, basically, of the european economic recovery and of the world in general, as well as the establishment of close political, economic and trade relations in the region with the United States
.This situation is evident, in particular, in small economies like the Caribbean affected by one sensitive exodus, among others, of teaching professionals and nurses. Specifically in the Caribbean, around the year 2000 while the total number of immigrants to the area represented 7.2% of the national population, the emigrants represented 15.5% of the population.
In the Caribbean this emigration is significantly marked by the increasing participation of women, who in some countries of the region have reached majority. This feminization of migration is related, inter alia with the demand for labour in service activities in recipient countries, the effects of social networks, and the modalities of family reunification, while the fundamental motivation of this movement is attributed to labour demand.
Characteristics, trends and implications of this process, not only labor but also family, are analyzed in the paper in case studies of selected Caribbean Islands

This research investigates the school-to-work transition of North African immigrants’ descendants in France by focusing on the intersection of race and gender inequalities. For some decades, the descendants of immigrants have been reaching the age of leaving school and entering the labor market. More recently, descendants of non-European immigrants are reaching this crucial step of the transition to adulthood. There is a growing concern regarding their school-to-work transition as they face racial discrimination. We question the “double discrimination” hypothesis which states that second generation women should be the most disadvantaged as they potentially face both racial and gender discrimination. In this light, we analyze the labor market entry of young adults who finished their schooling in 2004 and were followed over five years in the Génération 2004 longitudinal survey. Results show that while descendants of European immigrants do not face racial inequality, those having North African parents are disadvantaged. Regarding women, they do experience gender based disadvantages but the combination of race and gender does not systematically lead them to the most unfavorable labor market outcomes. Therefore, results do not point to a systematic addition of race and gender based disadvantages.

This paper adds to the intrahousehold allocation literature by incorporating migration and remittances using datasets from the Philippines. I examine whether the individual’s bargaining power within the household affects how remittances are allocated or spent. I use gender and education of household head as proxies for bargaining power, taking into consideration the moral hazard problem. I estimate a generalized linear model with logit link function and the binomial distribution since the outcome variables are expenditure share on nine categories of goods. The results suggest that female heads with absent spouse allocate remittances more on education and health, and less on alcohol and tobacco. These are consistent with the general findings of empirical tests on income pooling. Male heads with migrant spouse devote more on alcohol, tobacco, and education; less on food. The allocations of male heads on education and food are consistent with the presence of the wife. Educational attainment of the head also captures heterogeneity in the allocation of remittances among male- and among female-headed households. It appears that it is the less-formally educated heads who value and allocate more remittances on education, this is true for all female-headed households and male-headed households whose wives are present.

Incorporating the intersectionality approach from feminist theories and the transnational framework from the international migration literature, this study explores how gender dynamics at the family, community, and societal levels intersect with the migration process, and how such “transnational intersectionality” impacts the health trajectories of a gendered migration flow. In Taiwan and Korea, the VMMs represent the largest ethnic group without ethnic ties to the host societies. Their migration illustrates a gendered migration process that intersects the social stratification based on ethnicity, social class, and capitalist globalization. In collaboration with local community centers, I conducted 54 qualitative interviews and four focus groups in both rural and urban settings. By examining how gender is constructed across the borders at the micro-, meso-, and macro-levels, the results show that transnational intersections have differential and accumulative impacts on VMMs’ health trajectories, and is influenced by immigration and integration policies. This study exemplifies the health consequences of “enforced bachelorhood” in patriarchal societies with strong son preference, informs the literature of gender, migration, and development, and deserves attentions from immigration and health policy makers along the Pacific Rim.

This paper adds to the intrahousehold allocation literature by incorporating migration and remittances using datasets from the Philippines. I examine whether the individual’s bargaining power within the household affects how remittances are allocated or spent. I use gender and education of household head as proxies for bargaining power. Female heads with absent spouse allocate remittances more on education and health, and less on alcohol and tobacco. These are consistent with the general findings of empirical tests on income pooling and the unitary model. Male heads with migrant spouse devote more on alcohol, tobacco, and education; less on food. The allocations of male heads on education and food are consistent with the presence of the wife. Educational attainment of the head also captures heterogeneity in the allocation of remittances among male- and among female-headed households. It appears that it is the less-formally educated heads who value and allocate more remittances on education, this is true for all female-headed households and male-headed households whose wives are present.

Male out-migration leads to modification in the structure of family life and also transforms women’s social and economic position. A significant effect of migration on the family is the conjugal separation. The need for assistance with child care also may motivate a restructuring of household composition. Data Source: National Family Health Survey (NFHS)-3 (2005-2006). Objective: The broad objective of the study is to understand the household structure of left behind women and use of maternal health services in the place of origin due to male out-migration. Findings: male out-migration in non-nuclear households has better in use of maternal health services compared to those in nuclear households. This may be explained on the basis of the fact that the economic status of women in non-nuclear households is better than their counterparts. May be due to low standard of living, the affordability for health care among women in nuclear households is overshadowed.

In this article we explore men´s and women´s occupational outcomes after internal migration using panel data from Britain. Our theoretical framework combines traditional individual and household migration decision models with an innovative structural approach. This highlights the role within migration processes of the systematic separation of men and women across occupations with diverging characteristics and career prospects. We add to existing literature by focusing explicitly on individuals' post-migration occupational characteristics and sex-composition, and thus depart from the traditional (restrictive) focus on wages and employment status. Two types of migration-related occupational outcomes are of particular interest: (i) between-individual differences on post-migration occupational characteristics, and (ii) within-individual differences in pre- and post-migration occupational characteristics. Sex differences on the processes that lead to migration related occupational outcomes are explored as well as those which arise from migration roles in family moves, a pervasive structural factor on gendered migration outcomes. The empirical analysis consists of panel regression models estimated using individual-level data from the British Household Panel Survey combined with occupational-level data from the UK Labour Force Survey.

The paper draws upon quantitative evidence to develop a portrait of developing-country adolescent girls and young women who migrate to cities and towns. The evidence comes in the form of a large number of
well-standardized censuses and demographic surveys, supplemented with studies of individual countries and regions. Many types of evidence are needed to illuminate girls’ lives, but knowledge of the size of
migration flows and their demographic composition is essential to understanding the scale of program resources required to reach girls in need, and to get a sense of where within a country those resources should
be directed.

Prior research, mostly focused on Asian and Latin American contexts, found that women are increasingly present in international migration flows, especially so as independent economic actors. This paper examines the extent to which these two trends - the feminization of migration flows and an increase in autonomous female migration – can be observed in the African context. It uses data collected within the Migration between Africa and Europe (MAFE) project in Senegal, DR Congo and several European countries. Discrete-time event-history analysis reveals only moderate increases in the likelihood of female migration over time, but no decline in gender gaps. The collection of rich retrospective information from both current and return migrants allows a more in-depth investigation of the nature of women’s moves. Several indicators are used to grasp the extent to which women moved autonomously or in association to their partner. While some evidence of a rise in autonomous female migration was found among the Congolese, no salient change was visible in Senegal. This was interpreted in light of the more rigid patriarchal system prevailing in Senegal. The paper also shows that different indicators do not all point in the same direction suggesting that the borders between autonomous and associational moves are often blurred.

This study examines geographical distance between couples in family formation ages and their older parents using Swedish administrative register data. We look at all unions who gave birth to a 1st child between 1980 and 2007 and measure the distance to the four grandparents of the newly born child. We study the geographical distance to the man'€™s and the woman'€™s parents. The focus of the paper is to examine how education and migration interact and differ by gender. In the period of the study tertiary education expanded in a significant way and women moved from being under-represented to being over-represented in higher education. We show how changing patterns of educational patterns by gender has influenced the geography of inter-generational relationships in Sweden. The role of changing educational hypergamy and assortative mating as female educational achievement increased is also examined.