The International Migration of Women

The International Migration of Women

·         Between 1960 and 2005, the number of international migrants doubled. In 2005, about 190 million people or 3 percent of the world’s population lived outside their country of birth. (p.1)

·         Women represent almost half of the world’s international migrants, totaling 95 million. (p. 2)

·         Remittances, or the money migrants send back to their families in their home countries, amount to $200 billion per year. (p.1)

Women’s immigration patterns

·         According to the United Nations, the percentage of women international migrants increased almost 3 percentage points, from 46.7 percent to 49.6 percent, between 1960 and 2005. (p.2)

·         Between 1960 and 2005, the largest increases in women migrants were observed in: Oceania (from 44 to 51 percent), Latin America and the Caribbean (from 45 to 50 percent), Africa (from 42 to 47 percent), and the former Soviet Union (from 48 to 58 percent). The only region registering a drop in the share of female migrants was Asia (from 46 to 43 percent). (p.2)

·         Europe, Oceania, and the former Soviet Union have more female than male migrants; Latin America and the Caribbean and North America have about the same number; and Africa and Asia have more male migrants, with a decline in the share of female migrants in Asia. The region with the lowest proportion of women migrants is the Middle East, where women only represent 38.4 percent of the migrant population. (p.2)

·         Evidence from rural Mexico shows that the probability of migration is 2.5 times higher for young adult men with male migrant networks—groups of people already established in the receiving country who provide them with information and resources to adapt—than for those without. Presence of male migrants abroad does not affect women’s migration; however, female networks increase the odds of female migration 3.8 times. (p.35)

United States

·         Half of all migrants to the United States are women. (p.153)

·         Labor market participation is lower among female migrants from South Asia and the Middle East and North Africa, but higher among migrants from Europe, Sub-Saharan Africa, the Caribbean, and East Asia. (p.8)

·         Wage levels are higher for women migrants from Europe, followed by East and South Asia and Africa; female migrants from Latin America have the lowest wages. In general, women migrants from English-speaking countries tend to be employed in higher skilled jobs compared to their counterparts from other regions.  (p.9)

·         An extra year of education increases labor market participation levels by 2.3 percent and annual wages by $3,000 to $4,000, depending on the home country of the migrant. (p.154)

Mexico

·         Female Mexican migrants to the US are overwhelmingly employed in the nonagricultural sector compared to their male counterparts. (p.65)

·         Overall, women in rural Mexico migrate to a lesser extent than men.  Among older individuals, however, women are more likely to migrate. One reason could be that men are typically engaged in highly demanding physical work overseas, including in construction and agriculture—this is work typically carried out by younger individuals. (p. 5)

§         Increased border expenditures in the United States significantly deter migration by women from Mexico, but do not have a significant impact on men’s migration. This is likely because the cost of illegal migration is greater for women than for men because women are more vulnerable to abuse while migrating. (p. 6)

Ghana

·         Female-headed households receiving remittances from within Ghana have larger expenditure shares for health and education, while those receiving remittances from abroad have higher expenditure shares for health, spend significantly less on food and more on consumer and durable goods, housing, and other goods. (p.148)

·         The sex of the remitter can matter for budget allocations. For instance, households with a remitter living abroad who is the husband of the household head, on average, have a higher expenditure share on education, while the opposite holds for households whose remitters are the wife of the household head. These changes in expenditure patterns are likely due to shifts in bargaining power within the household when a man or woman migrates abroad (p. 148)