How Female Migration Can Reduce Gender Inequality

According to the United Nations Population Division of the Department of Economics and Social Affairs (UN DESA), 48 percent of the 231 million migrants in the world in 2013 were female. While this seems to be a gender-balanced distribution of migrants, the disaggregated data from the same source show that the share of female migrants is often lower in less-developed countries—particularly in regions such as Northern Africa and Western Asia, where female migrants represent only 41.5 and 34.3 percent of total migrants, respectively. When considering the global increase in migration, it is important to understand the economic, cultural, and sociological factors that account for differences in immigration rates between men and women, as well as possible consequences of such disparities.

A recent OECD study by Gaëlle Ferrant and Michele Tuccio suggests that differences in the rates of immigration across gender are associated with socially-institutionalized forms of gender inequality, such as norms that restrict females’ access to education, family planning, property ownership, and labor markets. The authors study how these factors impact female migration and, in turn, contribute to perpetuating gender inequality.

The study focuses on migration flows between developing countries—referred to as South-South migration—where discriminatory social institutions are prevalent. Indeed, South-South migrations account for over 50 percent of migration flows worldwide. To measure discrimination, the researchers use the Social Institutions and Gender Index (SIGI), which measures social inequality in five dimensions: family norms, such as marriage age, parental authority, and inheritance rights; restricted physical integrity; son bias; restricted assets; and restricted civil liberties. The two factors that most strongly affect women’s decisions to migrate are “discriminatory family code” and restricted civil liberties. In this context, the authors group together several social institutions that make up “discriminatory family code,” including unequal legal age of marriage between women, percent of women married between ages 15 and 19, and the presence of discriminatory inheritance laws that inhibit the ability of women to gain property.

The study identifies two important interactions between migration and gender inequality. The first interaction is a negative feedback loop: the discriminatory social institutions that women seek to escape restrict their agency, thereby inhibiting their ability to migrate. For example, a woman who is not allowed to work and is not financially independent may not be able to move abroad due to her lack of financial resources. A woman who has received less education because of social norms might find it more difficult to obtain employment in another country.

The authors also find an inverse relationship between the share of migrants coming from a country and the country’s level of social discrimination. This suggests that migration may help transmit liberal norms to migrants’ home countries and challenge gender-based social discrimination. This result is consistent regardless of the migrant’s gender; however, its impact is larger in the case of female migration. The graph below exhibits this relationship by showing the share of female migrants and the SIGI for different countries. It is important to recognize that this interaction is also contingent upon the level of discrimination in the destination country being lower than that in the origin country.

The main caveat of this study is that it does not account for illegal migrants, as the migration data only encompasses legal migrants. This may be a significant problem, as the reasons for illegal migration may add relevant information to the analysis of recent trends in migration. The study also does not include data for refugees, and there might be factors that prevent them from becoming agents of change in their home countries, whether or not they live in more liberal countries. For instance, refugees who are not fully integrated into their host countries may not be exposed to the countries’ social norms and institutions, minimizing their ability to challenge discriminatory social norms.

As far as legal migration is concerned, the study provides empirical evidence of specific discriminatory norms that constrain women’s decisions to migrate. This matters, not only because women should have the same opportunities as men to move abroad, but also because migration appears to be a powerful tool for liberalizing gender norms. In the long run, migration could help wipe out social norms that are at odds with gender equality, especially in societies with little government intervention available to address the problem.

Article Source: Ferrant, Gaëlle, and Michele Tuccio, “How Do Female Migration and Gender Discrimination in Social Institutions Mutually Influence Each Other?” OECD Development Centre Working Papers (2015), No. 326, OECD Publishing, Paris.

Featured Photo: cc/(Andrew Betts)