Migration and gender

This paper examines the relative differences in risk of migration across gender at household level. It further tries to explore the gender-specific dynamics of migration within the household. The theoretical framework is drawn from the New Economics of Labour Migration modified to address gender dimension which has placed migration decision making process in a household context. The empirical part uses the nationally representative survey (NSSO) data in India held during 2007-08 and uses multivariate regression technique to measure the relative risk of migration. For the bi-variate analysis households are classified into single/more than one/total migrants’ households according to number of migrants present within the household to understand the gender differences in migration.
The results reveal that in poor household female’s risk of migration is much higher than males signifying vulnerability of females both as bread winners and care takers. Female from low income group, from large household size, having more number of dependents and from low educated households are more likely to migrate than that of male. This implies to cope up with household vulnerabilities, to minimize the income risk and to improve the economic status of the family, women take recourse to migration as a practicable strategy.

Women may gain independence, whether they are themselves migrants or remain in the villages as the household heads when their husbands out-migrate, or they may lose independence and become subjugated to men. Hence an attempt has been made in this paper to study the decision-making power of the wives left behind due to their husbands’ out-migration. Primary data has been collected during January-March 2010 by undertaking a complete house listing of six villages of Pindra block of Varanasi, a district in the state of Uttar Pradesh in India. In cases, where there is presence of male members in the households especially fathers-in-law, decisions over the use of remittance are in their hands. In general, it has been found that the decision-making power of left-behind wives is quite high inspite of the fact that the study area is located in northern India where prevalence of patriarchal system is quite noteworthy.

This paper tried to investigate the underlying factors influencing of prevalence of premarital sexual activities among BPO employees in Tamil Nadu, India. Samples were collected through a structured questionnaire from 526 unmarried respondents in Tamil Nadu, India, during Behavioural Surveillance Survey in 2009 by AIDS Prevention And Control (APAC) Project, Tamil Nadu, India. The logistic regression analysis is carried out for the net effect by various background characteristics. The results showed that about one-third of respondents reported ever involved premarital sexual activities among BPO employees in Tamil Nadu, India. However, a large difference observed between men (39.6 percent) and women (26.1 percent) on prevalence of premarital sexual activities. Multivariate logistic regression analysis indicates that Gender, younger, those living away from parents, watch blue films, consume alcohol, attend late night parties, and discussed with anyone about HIV/AIDS are significantly high likelihood of engaging pre-marital sex when other factors are controlled. The study concludes that there is a significant gender dimension in reporting of premarital sexual activity. This calls for further research and discussion.

The feminization of migration has been a particularly marked phenomenon in Asia since the mid-1980s. However, the feminization of migration has not been very pronounced in South Korea, although its significance has grown more recently. At present approximately 44% of the total number of foreigners staying in South Korea and about 30% of migrant workers are women. From the 1990s till today the largest groupings of female migrants into Korea have been the Josonjok and marriage migrants. This paper reviews the phenomenon of the feminization of migration into South Korea, examining its trends and characteristics. It illustrates the role played by the Josonjok and marriage migrants in the process. The impact of this phenomenon on Korean society and policy is also explored, and finally, gender issues are examined. It is notable that the Korean Government’s perception of this phenomenon is not from the perspective of a gender issue, but as a population or family matter. The current integration policies, therefore, lack in gender equality content or measures. Thus it is that policies in South Korea need a more ‘gender-mainstream’ perspective.

The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees reported the proportion of females among the 2010 global population of persons of concern as 49 percent of 33.9 million. Deviations from this overall proportion in particular places and spaces, and at different times in processes of forced migration provide the insight into the role of gender in forced migration and its demography. Issues of vulnerability, rarely resilience, however, flow from these metrics. In this paper I engage the ways in which gender informs the understandings of the demography of forced migration. Cultural values and social norms concerning gender are significant determinants of relative risk and exposure in complex humanitarian emergencies and environmental crisis which result in human flight, displacement and the search for safe haven. Failure to consider gender in the demography of forced migration weakens the relevance of demographic analysis for prevention of and response to complex humanitarian crises.

This paper discusses ways in which the position that women hold in the family, community and society affects migrations within and outside sub-Saharan Africa, and conversely, the influence of migration on the position of women in the family, community or society. We utilize data on the stock of African migrants at destination, data on female-headed households, and recent literature to examine experiences of migrant women and of those left behind when men migrate.
In recent years, there has been a significant increase in the number of women migrants from the region to the wealthier countries of Europe and North America. The feminization of migrations together with the fact that most job opportunities at destinations are in unregulated, exploitative sectors of the economy have raised awareness of the discriminations against women. The migration process is perceived as a gendered phenomenon bringing to the fore the question of how migration either entrenches gendered inequalities and traditional roles, or challenges and changes them. This happens both when women migrate and men leave their spouses behind.
The paper has four parts; examination of available statistics, male selectivity and female-headed households, ‘brain drain’ -migration of professional women-, migration of unskilled women, and discussion.

This paper explores social, behavioral and health outcomes of migrant women living in urban slum areas of Dhaka, an understudied and vulnerable population. Using data on 15 to 29 year old women residing in slums from the baseline study (N=2989) of a unique multi-sectoral intervention program (SAFE) designed to promote sexual and reproductive health and rights (SRHR) among vulnerable women, we examine the influence of migration status on women's SRHR and marriage outcomes. Preliminary results from descriptive and multivariate logistic regression analyses suggest that women who migrated to Dhaka face adverse SRHR outcomes, including being less likely to have adequate knowledge about sexual rights and sexually transmitted diseases, and lower likelihood of utilization of maternal healthcare services, compared to women who were born in Dhaka. Analyses of marriage outcomes however do not yield significant indications that migration status is associated with adverse marriage outcomes.

Based on the theory of strain-anomie, this paper studies how marriage aspirations and the marriage squeeze jointly influence anomia among unmarried rural male migrant workers in the context of China’s gender imbalance. Multivariate analyses of data from a survey of Rural-Urban Migrants, in X City, China, show that unmarried rural male migrant workers have a high level of anomia when they have high marriage aspirations and feel the marriage squeeze simultaneously. This finding provides additional evidence that the marriage squeeze has a direct negative impact on unmarried rural male migrant workers.

As a result of the economic reforms that were introduced in Vietnam in 1986, the country has grown economically. However, due to a bias toward development policies which have been mainly concentrated in urban areas, the economic gap between rural and urban areas has rapidly widened over time. More job opportunities and better living conditions in the city, as well as low productivity in agriculture, have caused people to move to the major cities. Consequently, rural to urban migration has become one of the dominant flows of internal migration in the country in recent years. This migration stream not only has increased in scale but also in its complexity. Particularly, the age of the migrants has become younger as many young people become involved in this flow. Moreover, the number of female migrants outnumbers that of male migrants, and migration has become less selective in terms of education as both more and less educated people migrate. Also, not only the rich but the poor take part in this movement. This paper considers the gender differences in term of rural-urban migration flow to Ho Chi Minh city as well as their economic, social and cultural adjustment in order to provide deep insights into the lives of female migrants in the city.

The proportion of female migrants working in manufacture is higher than male migrants in the city of Batam. This study investigates whether this phenomenon implies better equality in labor market or whether it still has gender-biased conditions. Using the 2010 Census, three indicators used to assess gender bias: marital status and living arrangement, the percentage of under-five and the percentage of adults. Female migrants with higher probability to work in manufacture are the ones who are not married while male migrants with higher probability to work in manufacture are the ones who are married. The percentage of under-five is negatively related with female migrants’ probability to work in manufacture while positively related with male migrants’ probability to work in manufacture. The percentage of adults positively affect the probability to work for both male and female migrants, but for female migrants the effect is much steeper. These findings indicate that the opportunity of womens’ time may be still highly connected with household production much more than of men’s. Thus, female migrants may be more likely to work in manufacture than male migrants, but under certain gender bias conditions, their probabilities to work in manufacture may be declining.