November 28, 2007	Wednesday	Ziqa’ad 17, 1428

WASHINGTON: The stereotype of the male migrant toiling in a foreign land on behalf of an impoverished wife and children needs updating as half the time the migrant is a woman, says a new report.

Some 190 million people — three per cent of the world’s population — lived outside their country of origin in 2005, the World Bank, citing United Nations statistics, said Monday. Of them, 95 million or 49.6 per cent, were women.

In the 45 years between 1960 and 2005, women’s share of the total rose by nearly three percentage points, from 46.7 per cent, according to the report, ‘The International Migration of Women’.

“The share of women migrating for employment rather than family reasons has increased over time,” said Maurice Schiff, lead economist at the bank’s Development Research Group.

Much remains unknown about the work they do, the money they earn and send home, and how this money is spent when it reaches their families.

Bank officials using official figures estimate that foreign workers sent home about $200 billion last year. Last month, the UN’s International Fund for Agricultural Development and the Inter-American Development Bank put the annual figure at slightly more than 300 billion. How much of this is earned by women remains to be determined.

Even so, scattered survey data and case studies cited in the report suggest that women migrant workers are having a significant impact on development in their home countries.

“Women are sending lots of money to their families back home, and evidence from rural Mexico shows that their migration leads to positive economic effects for the homes they leave behind,” said Andrew Morrison, the bank’s lead gender economist. Researchers found that men in impoverished rural Mexico are more likely to raise cash crops or engage in other types of work that generate income than are women. So when a man leaves to go abroad, the household loses income. Once abroad, the man must earn more than he would have earned at home for his family to see the benefit of his departure.

Far fewer women leave home to work abroad, mostly in the United States. But those who go need earn less than would a man in order to make a net contribution to the family’s income because back home, women engage in work that is not financially compensated: raising staple food crops and tending the children, among other things.

The advantage may end there: Research suggests that when men send home their earnings and women take charge of spending it, more is devoted to education and services that improve the family’s outlook. When spending decisions are left to men, the money risks being frittered away.

The report lends itself to few convincing generalisations, however, because data and analysis remain largely blind to gender.

“One of the most important messages of this book is that migration studies can no longer ignore women migrants,” said Mirja Sjoeblom, an editor of the report. “This is a fascinating research area because we are still missing important pieces of the puzzle.”

“We need to know more about the differential impact of male and female migration on family cohesion and children’s welfare, as well as why certain households prefer female rather than male migration,” Sjoeblom added.

The number of female migrants is larger than that of male migrants in the former Soviet Union (58 per cent and rising), according to the report. It is about equal and rising in Europe, Oceania, and Latin America and the Caribbean; equal and steady in North America; and smaller in Africa (47 per cent and rising). In Asia, the proportion of female migrants, estimated at 43 per cent, is falling.

In the United States, women migrants from the Caribbean, East Asia, Europe, and Africa below the Sahara have joined the work force in greater proportions than have women from South Asia, the Middle East, and North Africa.

Women migrants educated in the United States make more money than those educated in their home countries. Among women schooled back home, those from Ireland, Australia and Britain earn the most. Among developing countries, women from South Africa, Jamaica, and India have the largest earnings.

Those from Colombia, the Dominican Republic, and Cuba earn the least. The report suggests this is because they lack language skills.—Dawn/IPS News Service