Migrant well-being in the Middle East and North Africa: A focus on gender in Cairo (original) (raw)

This paper complements the 2013 edition of IOM’s World Migration Report (WMR). In accordance with the WMR, it focuses on four dimensions of migrant well-being: career, financial, social and community. The paper has three main aims. The first is to provide an overview of the principal migration trends within and to the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region, as well as a discussion of the well-being of principal categories of migrants associated with those trends and some of the specific determinant factors of the well-being of these particular migrants. This is achieved through a review of available literature and case data from the International Organization for Migration (IOM). The second is to examine gender as a particularly important cross-cutting issue in the region that impacts the well-being of migrants from a broad range of social backgrounds. A case study of migrants in central and greater Cairo forms the focus of this examination and includes an analysis of in-depth, primary data on well-being collected from 561 migrants. Significant gender discrepancies are found across nearly all of the migrant well-being indicators used. Arguments are advanced as to why similar results regarding gender-related inequalities may be expected to a lesser or larger extent across other parts of the MENA region. Addressing this second aim forms the focus of the paper and it is the analysis therein that ultimately serves the paper’s third aim: examining how the relationships between gender and migrant well-being in the MENA region are associated with development outcomes and providing policy recommendations on this basis.