Migration, Marriage and Intra-household Dynamics: Lessons from Bangladesh, Ghana, and Indonesia (original) (raw)
Related papers
2021
This paper has been explored on women's participation in household decision-making in contrast to their male partner's international migration. This paper also focuses on women's adaptive mechanisms in the case of attaining and doing social, including the decision regarding kinship relation maintain both blood relations and marital relations. Also, it focuses on participation in various symbolic activities, religious and social festivals and rituals, encountering psycho-social crisis within the family and its beyond and economic activities, including managing the household, income-generating activities, investing money, and consumption pattern. The findings of this study were generated from the village Qadirpur in Comilla district in Bangladesh. The researchers collected primary data by employing qualitative tools and techniques of data collection, including observation, participant observation, case study, informal interview, and key informant interview method of doing ...
Migrant wives: dynamics of the empowerment process
MIGRATION AND DEVELOPMENT, 2018
An increasing number of male migrants are taking part in intra- and inter-regional migration in Asia, leaving their wives behind at home. Their wives, whom we call emigrant wives, often adapt to new roles and responsibilities and thus undergo empowerment in the migration process. This paper examines the impact of male migration on the empowerment of emigrant wives by comparing and contrasting the experiences of emigrant wives vis-à-vis non-emigrant wives. The research identifies and describes four major areas where emigrant wives tend to engage in the absence of their migrant husbands: access to economic resources, physical mobility, residential independence and decision-making role in key family affairs. Empirically, this study draws on fieldwork at two migration-source villages in Bangladesh. The study reports that emigrant wives gain new experiences in dealing with family and wider society in comparison with non-emigrant wives, and thus that migration exposes them to processes of greater empowerment.
Migrant Wives: dynamics of the empowerment process.pdf
Migration and Development, 2018
An increasing number of male migrants are taking part in intra- and inter-regional migration in Asia, leaving their wives behind at home. Their wives, whom we call emigrant wives, often adapt to new roles and responsibilities and thus undergo empowerment in the migra- tion process. This paper examines the impact of male migration on the empowerment of emigrant wives by comparing and contrasting the experiences of emigrant wives vis-à-vis non-emigrant wives. The research identifies and describes four major areas where emigrant wives tend to engage in the absence of their migrant husbands: access to economic resources, physical mobility, residential inde- pendence and decision-making role in key family affairs. Empirically, this study draws on fieldwork at two migration-source villages in Bangladesh. The study reports that emigrant wives gain new experi- ences in dealing with family and wider society in comparison with non-emigrant wives, and thus that migration exposes them to processes of greater empowerment.
This working paper is based on a survey of 1,203 households located in the Sampung sub-district of Ponorogo, a region in Indonesia’s East Java province. We surveyed both migrant (n=903) and non-migrant households (n=300) to gain a perspective on the challenges and benefits migration presents to households in the community. We found that of the migrant households, 96 per cent of all migrants had migrated for work. This highlights the reliance upon migration as a livelihood strategy. This working paper also notes a strong gender dimension in the patterns and processes surrounding migration. The gendered division of responsibilities within households affects men and women’s propensity to migrate in different ways. We found that households with a high dependency ratio lower women’s likelihood to migrate. Gender also influences migration destinations. Women are more likely to migrate overseas, rather than internally, and are more likely to migrate to a greater range of destinations compared to their male counterparts. This difference is due to a well-established gendered migration regime, which sees women’s international migration aided by a system of debt-finance migration that requires little, if any, upfront payment before migrating. In terms of outcomes, migrant households are more likely to report a greater improvement of quality of life, which includes the overall economic, health and educational status of their household members, compared to five years earlier. International migrants send back larger remittances and a higher proportion of households with international migrants said that their overall quality of life was ‘easier’ than five years ago. These findings suggest that migration, especially international migration (to which women have easier access), has the potential to positively influence perceptions of quality of life for households involved in this study, although more in-depth analysis is needed to verify this premise. It is important to note that internal migration may also result in positive change for migrants and their families, although it may be at a slower rate and smaller in scale due to differences in income when compared to international migration.
Male Out-Migration and Women Household Heads: The Cross-River Women Experience
HUMANUS DISCOURSE, 2023
This study investigates Male Out-Migration and Women Households Head: The Cross-River Women Experience. Both international and local migration of skilled and un-skilled person have assumed increasing importance in recent years reflecting the impact of globalization revival of growth in the world economy and the explosive growth in the information and communication technology (ICT). Such migratory patterns have been necessitated by “push” or “pull” factors like lack of jobs/poverty which leaves people with no choice but to emigrate from their home communities to other places for better life. Higher standard of living/higher wages provide the biggest push and pull factors for potential migrants. Within the last decade, male out-migration especially from the rural Cross River State to urban centres and other European countries has become a popular livelihood strategy. Drawing on primary field research, this study is an attempt to highlight interconnections between male out migration and women house-hold head in Cross River State. In doing so, the study found that male out-migration had both positive and negative effects on the women left behind. First, the financial outcomes of migration are mixed. Few women received large, steady remittances while the majority received minimal sporadic remittances. The paper employs both secondary and tertiary sources of data collection and adopted the historical research method in assembling and interrogating the data sourced for the study. Findings during the study revealed that despite the fact that male out migration has better off the lives of most migrant families, evidence abounds to the fact that challenges associated with it are numerous which include; increased stress on marital relationships, increased infidelity on the part of both women and men, and greater vulnerability to abandonment for the women left behind etc. The study conclude that the family structure is gradually weakening as a result of migration; young men and women are exposed to societal vagaries, the family security which children hitherto enjoyed by virtue of the presence of both parents is being lost. Keywords: Out- migration, women left-behind, household head, remittances
2015
Female international labour migration has been increasing over the past two decades. In Southeast Asia, countries such as Indonesia, the Philippines and Sri Lanka have witnessed the feminization of migration. In Indonesia for example, an estimated 80% of the individuals migrating outside of the country are women. These are countries were traditional gender roles are still undergoing transformation. Yet, the paradox of traditional societies in which the married woman leaves her husband and children behind and migrates to work and earn money has not received adequate attention in the scholarship. The aim of this paper is to examine the social and economic impact of international female labour migration of married women in Indonesia on the left-behind husbands and fathers. This research utilises quantitative and qualitative data from the project ‘What happens to the family when women migrate?’ which was funded by the British Council Institutional Links grant, a mixedmethod study invest...
The present study aims to examine the effects of husbands' international labour migration on wives' position among the left-behind wives in rural Bangladesh. A cross-sectional study conducted in Tuker bazar Union Parishad under Sylhet Sadar upazilla in Sylhet district, Bangladesh and data was collected through face to face interview. Two stage cluster sampling technique was applied to select the 220 migrant's families. About 220 comparable non-migrant families were selected by using stratified random sampling method. Binary logistic regression was applied to measure the effects of husbands' international labour migration on women decision making role and women autonomy. The findings reveal that men's labour migration was positively associated with women decision making role and women autonomy. So, male international migration increases the women decision making role and autonomy in rural areas.
American Ethnologist, 2011
Most scholarship on the effects of transnational migration on family life has argued that such migration results in profound shifts and dislocations in family practices and gender ideologies. Much of this work, however, has overlooked processes of internal migration: How different is transnational migration from internal migration in its impact on family life? By comparing families of transnational migrants with those of internal migrants in a small town in Ghana, I explore the effect of place and distance-as generated by human activity-on the maintenance of parent-child and spousal relations. I conclude that transnational migration exacerbates conflicts that exist in families unaffected by transnational migrations. [transnational family, Ghana, migration, children, motherhood, fatherhood]