Feminization of migration

In gender studies, the term feminization of migration has been proposed as a suggested "gendered pattern" in international migration. This means that there is a trend of a higher percentage of women among voluntary migrants.

According to estimates published by the World Bank, there has been only a slight increase in the percentage of women among international migrants over the past fifty years, with 46.7% estimated for 1960 and 48.4% for 2010. The term feminization of migration is mostly applied to an increase of migrant domestic workers to industrialized countries, especially those working as nannies.

The term "feminization of migration" was used in a 2007 working paper of the United Nations. Some of the issues this research addresses are remittances and their economic impacts, family cohesion, the racialization of migrants, human trafficking, gendered division of labor, and economic as well as educational opportunities. Prior to the gender studies boom of the 1990s, statistical evidence on migration patterns have not often been classified by gender.

A more recent shift in migration, in September 2014, patterns relates to an increase in the migration of single women and partnered women who migrate without their families.

Much of the work made available to women migrants is gendered and concentrated in the entertainment industry,health services, and most of all in the domestic services.

The gendered division of labor includes reproductive labor, which refers to work performed within the domestic or private sphere and which helps to sustain a household (e.g. cleaning, cooking, childcare and rearing, etc.). Reproductive labor enables paid, productive labor to take place. Reproductive labor is typically performed by women and, as dominant gender discourses are threaded throughout labor ideologies, domestic work has historically been considered a "natural" part of a woman's duties and identity. As such, feminized labor has typically been considered "unskilled" and, thus, has gone unpaid.

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