Migrant Women and Work
- Anuja Agrawal - University of Delhi, India
Sociology of Work & Occupations
The contributors discuss a variety of issues from a fresh perspective including gender equality, household division of labor and state policies regarding welfare provisions. Overall, the volume maintains that the structural ramifications of women's migration extend beyond the lives of migrant women themselves insofar as their labor plays a crucial factor in shaping gender relations in the societies of both the migrants and their hosts.
The picture of migrant workers that emerges from this volume suggests that the specificity of the migrant woman's occupational class marks the degree of her vulnerability. Among the case studies presented are: the migration of Filipino women; Thai rural women's migration to Bangkok; Indian nurses in the Gulf; and Asian women medical workers in the UK.
The focus of this book on women migrants from different coutries in South and Southeast Asia. It examines the experiences of women who have found work in either unskilled or skilled employment, as domestic workers, doctors, nurses, workers in the entertainment or sex industries or in other capacities.
The book is significant as it not only breaks the silence on the critical issue of women in migration and its complexities, but also captures its multilayered multiplicity in the era of globalisation….The book underlines the centrality of women in both international and intra-national migration, the ramifications of which has serious economic, political and socio-cultural implications in a changed global scenario.
The distinguishing feature of this collection of original essays and case studies is that it concentrates on `solo` migrant women….the case studies demonstrate that gender ideologies remain highly resistant to modification even consequent to a radical alteration in the household division of labour owing to women`s migration.
A look at migrating women, especially single migrant women….focuses on Asian women who migrate globally or across the Asian continent or within their respective countries in order to seek work.