1. Gender and labour migration Avril Bell 2017
SOCIOL 224
Gender and labour migration
Avril Bell
2017

2. What do we know about our own family migration stories?
When did members of your family arrive in NZ?
Did they come as part of a family unit or alone?
What do you know about why they came here?
How does gender figure in the stories you know of your own family?
How does the concept of labour migration figure (i.e. migrating for work)?

3. Overview… Researching gender and labour migration
The human capital approach and migrant characteristics research
The importance of the ‘context of reception’
Low skilled labour migration & gender
A question to think about – What does a failure to consider the gendered realities of migration hide from view?

4. Migration Trends Key Indicators, MBIE 2014

5. Diversified
Bifurcated
Feminised
Fleury (2006, 5)

6. Researching gender & labour migration
What are the characteristics of migrants (including gender)?
Who is migrating for what kinds of work?
How does gender impact on individuals’ motivations for migration?
What are the gendered experiences and strategies of men and women as migrants?
How does gender impact on the reception of migrants by host countries?
How does gender impact on migrant ‘outcomes’ (work, integration)?
What are the gendered impacts on migrants and families left behind in situations where individuals (male or female) migrate for work (and to send remittances home)?

7. Human capital approach to labour migration research
What are the characteristics of migrants? What is their ‘human capital’?
Who is migrating for what kinds of work?
What are the gendered strategies of men and women as migrants?
How does gender impact on migrant ‘outcomes’ (work, integration)?
Emphasis is on migrants skills (‘human capital’), what they do and what they offer.

8. Gender and labour migration through HC lens
Women get ‘less return’ on their human capital (skills, education etc)
Lower labour force participation rates than migrant men & locals
Lower incomes
The skills of women migrants are being ‘under-utilized’
Working below their qualification level
Underemployed (e.g. part-time)
Unemployed
Responses
Entrepreneurship (self-employment). e.g. see Pio (2007) on Indian women entrepreneurs in NZ
Ethnic niches – e.g. Vietnamese women & manicure/pedicure businesses

9. ‘Compromised careers’
Suto (2009, 422) – participants = 14 married women/mothers who migrated to Canada as adults. ’Comfortable speaking English’
12 employed, only 2 full-time, skills being under-utilised

10. ‘In Australia, migrant women often experience downward occupational mobility and a re-orientation away from paid work and towards the domestic sphere’ (Ho, 2006).

11. Causes of under-utilization?
Domestic responsibilities (exacerbated by migration)
Lack of affordable childcare
Gendered expectations re childcare
Lack of recognition or devaluation of overseas qualifications
Lack of local work experience
Language difficulties
Human capital approaches can’t explain these gendered outcomes
Migrants = free-floating individuals bearing ‘capital’
Focus on economic activity to neglect of other aspects of migrants’ lives
Leads to ‘deficit thinking’ to explain problems. Can’t take ‘context of reception’ into account.

12. Employment is only one motivation for migration
From Bartley, et al (2012, 5) – surveyed overseas-trained social workers in NZ, 236 – female, 54 – male
High proportion of family motivation could be linked to high proportion of women migrants in study – possibly came in families for partners’ work

13. ‘Contexts of reception’
Lack of recognition of overseas qualifications
Professional closure
Lack of local experience – ‘they cannot obtain employment because they lack local experience, but they cannot obtain local experience because employers will not hire them’ (Meares 2010, 477).
Language difficulties
Government policies & supports (or lack of them)
Gendered labour markets
Vertical & horizontal segregation of work
Gender pay gap
Gender stereotypes

14. Low skilled labour migration & gender
Hennebry et al (2016, 15)
* DIOC-E = Database on Immigrants in OECD and non-OECD Countries

15. The global care chain
Women in developed countries increasingly in paid work
Low skilled women migrants take over their care roles
Spouses & extended families left to care for their children at home

16. Issues related to temporary labour migration
Impacts on families left behind, including remittances
Migration as a business & a national development strategy
Gendered migrant vulnerability

17. Families left behind Generally benefit materially from remittances
But also a number of significant social costs
Risks and losses to children with loss of their mother
Stresses to fathers left behind or grandparents caring for children
Impacts on physical and mental health of caregivers and children
Relationship stresses from living apart

18. Migration business & development
‘Transnational encapsulation’ – low skilled migrants are valuable and tightly controlled commodities
Recruited and controlled by migration agencies (with support from the state)
Regulated by receiving states & employers
With continuing duty of care towards them from sending countries
- Xiang Biao (cited in Lindquist, 2010)

19.  Top 10 remittance receiving countries globally as proportion of GDP = Tajikistan, Tonga, Moldova, Lesotho, Samoa, Lebanon, Kyrgyz Republic, Gyana, Nepal and Honduras
Yuan et al (2014, 39)

20. Women & temporary migration in NZ
Temporary work visa category
Percentage of women
Family-related 64
Recognised seasonal employment 27
Total temporary work visas 44

22. Temporary work visa categories in NZ
Yuan, et al (2014, 18)
Temporary work visa categories in NZ

23. Vulnerable workers
Low skilled, female, temporary migrants suffer ‘triple discrimination’
Migrant categories most vulnerable to exploitation
migrants who are not native English speakers
migrants who are low-skilled or unskilled workers
migrants from low-income source countries
remittance workers
women (especially in the sex industry or domestic service)
young adults (including international students and working holidaymakers)
workers with precarious migrant status
undocumented or trafficked labourers
–Yuan, et al 2014

24. Risks of exploitation
Working conditions – hours of work, pay, health & safety
Contract conditions – often lack right to change employers, right to unionise, right to strike, holiday provisions
Housing – poor quality & high cost
Indebtedness – agents fees, travel costs, loans & interest to pay these, plus accommodation & transport costs for work, uniforms…
Abuse
Social conditions – prohibited from bringing family with them. Isolation. Many are not allowed freedom of movement.

25. Summing up… Migrants are gendered and have families!
Employment is not the only motivation for, or measure of success, of migration, but having work is important
The benefits and costs of migration are complex, diverse – and gendered

27. Further sources
Bartley, Alan, et al Transnational Social Workers: Making the profession a transnational professional space. International Journal of Population Research, 11pp.
Fleury, Anjali Understanding Women and Migration: A Literature Review. KNOMAD Working Paper 8, World Bank.
Ho, Christina Migration as feminisation? Chinese women’s experiences of work and family in Australia. Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies 32:
Lindquist, Johan Labour recruitment, circuits of capital and gendered mobility: Reconceptualizing the Indonesian migration industry. Pacific Affairs 83(1):
Pio, Edwina Inspirational cameos: ethnic minority Indian women entrepreneurs in New Zealand. Journal of Immigrant and Refugee Studies 5:
Suto, Melinda Compromised careers: the occupational transition of immigration and resettlement. Work 32:
Hennebry, J. et al Women migrant workers’ journey though the margins: Labour, migration & trafficking. UN Women.
Yuan, Sylvia et al Temporary Migrants as Vulnerable Workers: A Literature Review. MBIE.