Beyond numbers: Gender dimensions throughout the migration cycle

This section explores how gender influences migration experiences, including displacement, throughout the migration cycle, from pre-departure to entry and stay in destination countries and, if applicable, return to the country of origin; a typology used in previous editions of the World Migration Report.²³ Although migration and displacement do not necessarily follow a linear approach, conceptualizing the gender dimensions along the different stages of the migration cycle offers a useful framework of analysis. Recognizing the importance of other factors, including age, these gender dimensions summarized in Figure 8 below are approached through the prism of gender inequalities, highlighting how gender may trigger diverse opportunities, vulnerabilities and risks for migrants. This section should be understood as offering examples of the countless ways gender and migration interact, since it would be impossible to comprehensively cover all of these opportunities, vulnerabilities and risks.

Pre-departure

As explored in this subsection, gender impacts the pre-departure phase of migration in multiple ways, from the aspirations and decision to migrate at the individual and household levels and the drivers of migration and displacement to the ability to access to information and the types of information channels used. Migration policies and legislation of countries of origin can be highly gendered, including emigration bans and limitations; bilateral agreements and facilitations for labour migration can likewise be highly gendered, and can be pivotal in fuelling irregular migration in gendered ways, including gendered risks of human trafficking.

Individuals’ initial aspirations and ensuing decisions to stay or migrate are already influenced by gender norms prevailing in their countries of origin. The traditional figures of the man breadwinner and woman caregiver tend to persist worldwide to a greater or lesser degree, intersecting with individuals’ life cycles in terms of age, marital status, and the fact of having children. For example, in West Africa, the migration of (young) men is considered an intergenerational responsibility and an expression of manhood, providing an opportunity for upward social and economic mobility upon return, including for marriage.²⁴ In Afghanistan and Pakistan, some ethnic groups consider migration as a rite of passage into adulthood, including through irregular and unsafe migration routes.²⁵ The takeover by the Taliban in Afghanistan in August 2021 and the restrictions they have since adopted, especially towards women and girls, have, however, somewhat nuanced the predominantly male-led migration patterns, with an increase in the number of women and girls displaced in often unsafe conditions.²⁶ In some families, women (especially young women) may be pressured into immobility to look after family members or resort to family or marriage migration as a socially acceptable form of migration.²⁷ Independent migration may be considered shameful for their families, at times associated with liberal lifestyle, behaviours and overt sexuality.²⁸

However, although not considered matriarchal, some societies have a long-standing culture of feminized migration, such as in Cabo Verde or West Java, Indonesia.²⁹ Even in societies with a traditional approach to gender roles, women’s migration has become a household strategy to address economic needs in the context of the growing demand for migrant labour, for example in the care sector. Beyond the well-known case of the Philippines since the 1980s,³⁰ Peruvian women have been migrating independently to Argentina to work in the service sector, being more likely to secure a job than their husband.³¹ Seasonal or circular migration is also a strategy used by some migrant women to balance the need for income and their care duties as mothers and wives, as reported by migrant women from Hungary, for instance.³²

For some, migration also offers an avenue to escape traditional gender norms and societal pressures. For instance, marriage migration allows women to avoid prevailing social norms dictating their age of marriage or whether they can remarry after divorce.³³ For migrants with diverse sexual orientation, gender identities and expression, and sex characteristics in South-East Asia, discrimination in families and societies can be a driver of migration alongside economic advancement.³⁴ At an extreme, gender-based discrimination can take the form of abuses, violence and persecution, and can force individuals to flee their country of origin, sometimes resulting in obtaining international protection elsewhere (see next subsection).

Migration decisions are also highly contingent on one’s access to information, and on the type of information that can be accessed, which can be highly gendered. Four main sources of information can be identified: social networks, media coverage, awareness-raising interventions and pre-orientation programmes. While these are highly context specific, some overall gendered patterns and implications can be identified. Most notably, while social networks, including diasporas, play an important role for migrants of all genders, networks relied upon by migrant women vary: some women tend to favour family networks as a trusted source of information, while others turn to women’s networks for gendered information or get the support of returned migrant women.³⁵ On their part, media coverage and awareness-raising interventions often focus on the danger and risks of migration, which may discourage women and girls from migrating but may have a more limited effect on men and boys.³⁶ Finally, except in some countries in South and South-East Asia, pre-orientation programmes tend to be designed based on a one-size-fits-all model that may thus be less effective in addressing gender vulnerabilities in migration.³⁷

Migration policies and legislation of countries of origin may hinder individuals’ migration along gender lines. Bans on emigration and limitations through pre-emigration clearance to certain countries (primarily the Gulf countries) have been adopted by countries of origin, especially in South and South-East Asia, including Bangladesh, Cambodia, India, Indonesia, Nepal, the Philippines, Sri Lanka and Myanmar.³⁸ While presented as protective measures for their nationals, these bans and limitations have primarily targeted women, restricting their labour migration in specific work sectors (primarily in domestic work). Such restrictions can be based on their age or that of their children, and can also involve the express approval of a male guardian.

At the same time, bilateral labour agreements (BLAs) and memorandums of understanding (MoUs) have increasingly been adopted among countries of origin and destination to facilitate labour migration and regulate regular labour migration, especially in low-skilled occupations such as agriculture, construction and domestic work. Often presented as “triple win” solutions for countries of origin, countries of destination and migrants themselves, these agreements, however, tend to reinforce the gender segregation of labour globally by facilitating labour migration to countries in need of workers in highly gendered occupations, in addition to creating gendered vulnerabilities due to their lack of a gender approach to protection (see subsection on stay, below).³⁹ Although the extent to which these agreements impact migration flows and migrant stocks is unclear, it is noteworthy that the majority of the top 20 migration corridors for male and for female migrants (Figures 5 and 6) involve countries with BLAs or MoUs.⁴⁰

To facilitate labour migration, some countries also proactively support their nationals to prepare for migration in specific occupation sectors. Often presented as a model for labour migration, the Philippines has set up a whole apparatus for supporting the recruitment of Filipinos abroad and their protection in destination countries. This started back in the 1970s with the launch of an overseas employment programme, especially to countries in the Middle East experiencing labour shortages in the construction sector in the midst of the oil boom.⁴¹ Issues of labour protection experienced by overseas Filipino workers prompted the country to complement its policy of facilitation of labour migration with one focusing on the protection of its nationals, starting from mid-1970s onwards and culminating in 2022 with the establishment of the Department of Migrant Workers.⁴² The Department provides a range of e-services prior to migration and maintains a list of licensed recruitment agencies to aid in protecting workers from fraudulent recruitment agencies and exploitation.⁴³

Yet, in most countries, visa application processes remain cumbersome and not easily accessible, if not dangerous. For instance, Syrian women applying for family reunification with their male spouses who had been granted refugee status in Germany may risk their lives while collecting the necessary documents and reaching German embassies in neighbouring countries due to the closure of diplomatic representation in the Syrian Arab Republic.⁴⁴ While the increasing move to online application processes may address some of these situations, they also raise issues for individuals from countries with less connectivity and where women tend to be disproportionally without access to information and communications technologies (ICT) compared to men.⁴⁵

Gendered obstacles to migration coupled with restrictive regular migration pathways may fuel irregular migration, which enhances the risk of abuse, exploitation and human trafficking. The risks along irregular migration routes are manifold, from violent smugglers to human traffickers exploiting migrants’ vulnerabilities.⁴⁶ Accounting for 60 per cent of all identified victims of trafficking worldwide in 2020, the specific gender-related vulnerabilities of women and girls are well known, especially to trafficking for sexual exploitation but also for forced labour, with women and those with diverse gender identities and expressions more likely to be subjected to physical and extreme violence from traffickers compared to men.⁴⁷ The lower proportion of men and boys identified among victims of trafficking should, however, not mask some of their specific vulnerabilities, especially to forced labour, sexual exploitation, forced criminal activities and mixed forms of exploitation. Although the identification of men victims increased in 2020, men may not self-identify as victims or may be ashamed to identify themselves as such, especially in cases of sexual exploitation.⁴⁸ Similar identification issues may arise with transgender and non-binary individuals being primarily trafficked for sexual exploitation.⁴⁹

Entry

Gender considerations inform migrants’ experience of and ability to enter a transit or destination country, both in terms of physical border crossing and normative and policy frameworks governing entry.

Borders are physical manifestations of national sovereignty and can become sites of discrimination and violence.⁵⁰ Gender biases can also be found in digital technologies implemented for identity and security checks at border points, such as for facial recognition, which has a higher propensity for misrecognizing individuals with darker skin complexions and women.⁵¹ Similarly, AI-based emotion recognition used to assess migrants’ credibility has also proven to be racially and gender biased, misinterpreting some microgestures made by migrants who have previously experienced trauma and, in cases of migrants of diverse gender identities, who may have been used to conceal or feel uncomfortable revealing their gender identity.⁵²

Migration policies and legislation also determine migrants’ opportunities for regular entry along gender lines. Gender norms and stereotypes emerge across the three main regular pathways: labour migration, family migration and international protection.⁵³

Labour migration policies are not gender neutral: they perpetuate gender inequalities experienced in countries of origin, integrate societal gender biases and impact the opportunities and outcomes for migrant workers along the lines of gender identity.⁵⁴ Permanent and temporary labour migration permits tend to be granted according to skill levels that often remain highly gendered. For example, women working in traditionally feminized occupations, such as in the fields of health (for example, nurses) or education (for example, teachers), are less likely to obtain a working permit than men in male-dominated skilled occupations, especially when migration policies define skill levels based on the applicant’s salary, which is often lower for women than men.⁵⁵ Highly skilled labour migration often associated with permanent or longer-term residence permits tends to focus on global talent acquisition in employment fields where men are often overrepresented, such as science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM).⁵⁶ Skilled occupations predominantly held by women, such as those health and education, are often in regulated professions where migrants’ international qualifications may not be recognized. This can result in women entering more easily accessible lower-skilled migration channels, including through BLAs and temporary labour migration schemes (particularly evident in care work), which then contributes to their downward occupational mobility and vulnerability in sectors with lower levels of protection, such as care, where States typically underinvest in welfare provisions.⁵⁷ When migrating for domestic work, women have also faced restrictions on their sexual and reproductive rights, for instance when asked by recruitment agencies in some countries to take a pregnancy test before and after arrival.⁵⁸

Family migration has traditionally been highly feminized due to enduring gender norms in countries of origin, with women often following their husband migrant. Family migration policies reinforce these gender inequalities by tying family members to the first migrant sponsor.⁵⁹ Moreover, for family reunification, restrictive entry requirements may be difficult to meet due to gender inequalities in the country of origin, often disproportionately impacting women as sponsored family members.⁶⁰ This is the case, for instance, with regard to pre-entry language tests, as the necessary language skills are closely related to gendered levels of education and to the financial means to access language courses. Migrants with diverse gender identities face challenges in family reunification in a number of countries where a traditional binary understanding of sex in relation to spouses and partners remains in place.⁶¹ Even in countries recognizing same-sex partnerships, the need to present a marriage certification or proof of civil union may bar migrants’ family reunification, especially for those coming from countries where same-sex marriage is not legalized, and relationships may even be criminalized.⁶²

Seeking international protection can be a highly gendered experience. First, gender-related risks in the country of origin may justify individuals being granted international protection in the country of destination, such as refugee status.⁶³ These gender-based risks have tended to be recognized for women and girls, as well as individuals of diverse gender identities in case of sexual violence (such as rape, forced prostitution, forced pregnancy and abortion and forced or underage marriage), physical violence (such as honour killing, genital mutilations and corporal punishments imposed because of discriminatory laws and social mores), or other serious violations of their human rights (such as arbitrary detention) or an accumulation of various discriminations.⁶⁴ Second, gendered considerations underpin refugee status determination, which centres on evidence and credibility assessment. In cases of gender‑related persecution, past experiences of gender-based harm and discrimination, as well as the sensitive, intimate and sometimes concealed nature of gender identities and expressions, may affect the coherence and consistency of applicants’ statements.⁶⁵ In other cases, gender stereotypes of vulnerability for women and girls have been found to negatively impact men asylum-seekers, who tend to be more easily viewed as “bogus” refugees.⁶⁶ These stereotypes can also affect vulnerability assessments for refugee resettlement, access of vulnerable individuals to referral mechanisms to appropriate services (such as for potential victims of trafficking), and service provision in humanitarian settings.⁶⁷

Finally, gender plays an important role in the experiences and vulnerabilities of irregular migrants, including rejected asylum-seekers and those placed in immigration detention pending removal. Beyond the traumatic psychological experience of immigration detention regardless of gender, women and migrants of diverse genders are at risk of sexual and gender-based violence.⁶⁸ This is especially the case for transgender migrants, who have been reported to be 15 times more likely to be sexually assaulted compared to other detained individuals.⁶⁹ Transgender women migrants are particularly at risk as they are often placed in detention facilities with men.

Stay

Migrants’ experiences of staying in destination countries are diverse and depend on various factors, including their initial drivers of migration, migration status and ensuing inclusion processes, which can all be highly gendered. While this subsection explores some of the key inclusion outcomes for migrants in terms of labour market, remittances, education and training, housing, health and social cohesion, these outcomes remain closely tied to the benefits and entitlements granted to migrants depending on the duration of their right to stay in the destination country. Gender inequalities thus tend to be perpetuated, if not exacerbated, during migrants’ stay, given the greater obstacles that women face to access long-term and permanent permits and residency – often preconditions for citizenship – due to gender biases embedded in policies and legislation governing entry.

Employment outcomes, a key factor for migrant inclusion, are intrinsically linked to the skills-based approach to work permits taken by migration policies. Lower-skilled labour is not only highly gendered occupationally but often characterized by precarious – often temporary – migration status and working conditions that create and reinforce gender vulnerabilities. Typical examples are men migrant workers in the agricultural sector and women migrant workers in the care and domestic work sectors. Although widely acclaimed as “essential workers” during the COVID-19 pandemic, such workers experience highly vulnerable conditions, living in close proximity to their employer (on-farm housing for agricultural workers and employers’ homes for domestic workers), depending on employers for access to goods and services, and entitled to a lower level of labour protection than workers in other occupations.⁷⁰ The migration of women domestic workers from South Asia and South-East Asia to the Gulf countries is often governed by BLAs that do not secure migrants’ rights to labour protection in the destination country nor consider the specific vulnerabilities of women.⁷¹ This contributes to the highly precarious situation of migrants covered by the Kafala system, which ties them to their employer, excludes them from the protection of labour laws and can lead to major abuses and rights violations.⁷² In Lebanon, for instance, migrants’ sexual, reproductive and maternal rights are unprotected, particularly in cases when workers become pregnant and employers terminate their contracts, leading to possible deportation or irregular status.⁷³

From a migrant perspective, employment in destination countries can be a highly gendered experience. The lower rate of labour force participation for women migrants compared to men migrants (estimated globally at 59.8% and 77.5%, respectively, in 2019)⁷⁴ is partially attributed to the division of labour in migrant households, where women migrants tend to experience “involuntary inactivity” when married or due to care responsibilities for children.⁷⁵ This is also closely interlinked to gender norms and the dependency situation created by family migration policies, when women migrants are tied to their migrant worker husbands with, in some countries such as South Africa, no right to work.⁷⁶ Research also highlights the role of gender equality in countries of origin in terms of employment and wage levels for migrant mothers in destination countries, with migrant women from North Africa faring worse in France compared to those from sub-Saharan Africa and Europe.⁷⁷

Gender-related obstacles to finding employment may push migrants to resort to informal work, as shown by the preponderance of women informal workers, including women migrants: estimates of the number of women in informal employment (as a percentage of total women in employment) are as high as 89.7 per cent for Africa and 64.1 per cent for Asia and the Pacific.⁷⁸ Occupations range from street vendors to waste pickers and home-based workers, such as garment workers and domestic workers.⁷⁹ A study on Latin America and the Caribbean, for instance, found that in 7 of the 15 countries covered, 9 out of 10 domestic workers were employed informally.⁸⁰ Migrants working in the informal economy experience higher levels of precarity, being excluded from social protection, and are more likely to face abuses, violence, exploitation and human trafficking.⁸¹

While women migrants seem overall to be disadvantaged compared to men migrants in terms of labour market inclusion, evidence points to women migrants’ patterns of remitting a larger proportion of their salaries than men migrants.⁸² Even though earning generally less than men, women migrants remit approximately the same amount, if not more, than men.⁸³ They also appear to remit more through in-person cash transfers than men, due to their overrepresentation in the informal economy, where they are less able to access diverse financial services and have less access to both digital services and the skills to use them. This gendered imbalance was evident during the COVID-19 pandemic with the move to digital services, which raised more difficulties for women migrants to remit.⁸⁴

Beyond the labour market and financial inclusion, gendered patterns can also be seen in education and training, housing and health. While education and training empower migrant women, family and professional responsibilities and language barriers undermine their access to education and adult learning.⁸⁵ In the case of children in the specific context of refugee camps, families may prioritize the education of boys over that of girls, due to social norms.⁸⁶ When displacement provides new education opportunities for girl refugees, physical access to school may be dangerous because of harassment and discrimination. Migrant women in precarious socioeconomic situations, including due to lower incomes, may also experience less access to housing compared to migrant men, or lower rates of securing housing that is adequate and safe.⁸⁷ As can be seen in research on France, loss of income may further push migrant women into homelessness, with a significant likelihood that they will fall victim to prostitution rings or to resort by themselves to sex work to regain their financial autonomy.⁸⁸

All these aspects impact migrants’ mental and physical health in destination countries. While migration can overall increase health outcomes for migrants, migrant women tend to have worse health than migrant men and different health needs.⁸⁹ The causes are grounded in gender inequalities, including in terms of access to health‑care services, with acute implications for those in irregular situations, especially for sexual and maternal health care.⁹⁰

Migrants’ mental health can also be highly gendered. In the case of separated families, connections with children and other family members in the origin country play an important role, especially for women, and have been facilitated by digital technologies.⁹¹ As has been shown by research on migrant women from Latin and Central America in the United States, digital technologies enable mothers to continue their caregiving role at a distance despite feelings of emotional distress.⁹² Indeed, caregiving responsibilities are not drastically redistributed within households when mothers are away, although fathers in the country of origin may come to temporarily fill the caregiving role, as can be seen in Indonesia and the Philippines.⁹³ While migrants’ transnational ties are an important source of comfort and support, this may not be the case for transgender and non-binary migrants, especially refugees who may have cut ties with their relatives back home and be further socially excluded in destination countries due to their gender, without appropriate support from health and social services.⁹⁴

Gender discrimination and stigmatization in countries of destination often overlap with racial and cultural stereotypes, supported by rising anti-immigrant discourses in some countries of destination.⁹⁵ Migrant men from Muslim countries have, for instance, been portrayed as threats because of alleged dangerous masculinity in diverse regions, such as in Europe following incidents of sexual harassment in Germany in 2015.⁹⁶ Stereotypes of women’s hypersexuality in destination countries have also impacted migrant women, such as Venezuelan women in Peru and Brazilian women in Portugal, stigmatizing them as prostitutes and leading to heightened risks of experiencing sexual harassment and gender-based violence.⁹⁷

Return

As with the other stages of the migration cycle, return to the country of origin is underpinned by gender dimensions that influence the varied reasons for migrants of all genders to return (or not), their experiences and their circumstances post-return. As is the case in other stages of the migration cycle, the gender dimensions of migration status and the type of permit in destination countries play a role in the decision to return and the experiences upon return, including in terms of reintegration.

In migrant households with persons of different genders, the decision to return is also a function of gender roles and dynamics. In sociocultural contexts where the division of family and household labour is gendered, more women than men are likely to return when family members in the country of origin need care.⁹⁸ Return migration is also an outcome of low life satisfaction in the country of destination, with gender mediating how men and women interpret life satisfaction.⁹⁹ For instance, income disparities between women and men that tend to favour men can lead to gendered experiences of life satisfaction and differences in the impetus for return migration. Attachment to the family has also been shown to play a stronger role for some women compared to men, motivating their return home.¹⁰⁰

Gendered income differences also suggest that men are more likely to return due to “return of innovation”,¹⁰¹ which occurs after migrants have acquired relevant skills and adequate capital for investment in the country of origin. Men’s return of innovation is facilitated by investment policies and incentives in the country of origin designed to attract diaspora investment, such as in Ghana, where migrant capital is mobilized and integrated into domestic development policies.¹⁰² Ghana encourages investment and return, as illustrated by its declaration of 2019 as “The Year of Return”, targeting the Ghanaian and African diaspora at large. A similar policy is followed by Senegal, which depicts returned Senegalese businesspeople as the “ideal returnees”.¹⁰³ The framing of development in economic terms in countries such as Ghana and Senegal, among many other African countries, means that it is mostly men who are able to take advantage of policy incentives put in place to lure return migration for development purposes. As illustrated in the case of Romanian migrants who returned from Italy, it is also mostly men who can transfer substantial sums of money and use the skills and networks they have acquired in the country of destination and those they created there to facilitate their reintegration.¹⁰⁴

Considering that migrants returning to their countries of origin often face a relatively higher unemployment rate, women who return without additional skills or upskilling are likely to face labour market reintegration challenges.¹⁰⁵ Migrant men are likely to return with higher skills which contribute to their “successful return”. These patterns of successful return underscore the importance of the – often highly gendered – types of occupation held by migrants in their country of destination, that frame their successful return and reintegration in the country of origin.

Women are more likely to engage in “return of failure”, that is, return occurring while migrants’ “migration goals” have not been met.¹⁰⁶ For women migrants, this is often due to their gender roles within the family and household, and is exacerbated by the job insecurity and economic precarity that many migrant women, especially those in low‑skilled occupations, experience. The COVID-19 pandemic brought the gender dimension of return migration into sharp focus. Migrant women were disproportionately affected by the pandemic because most work in the services sector (79.9% women against 56.4% men),¹⁰⁷ and this sector was the most affected by travel restrictions and lockdowns. Income loss led to economic precarity and insecurity, including the loss of secure accommodation, which in turn, in some cases, exposed migrant women to heightened risks of sexual and gender-based violence.¹⁰⁸ After losing their employment in the informal sector in Thailand, for example, migrant women who returned to the Lao People’s Democratic Republic during the COVID-19 pandemic experienced heightened discrimination and gender inequality in terms of unpaid care work and vulnerability to sexual and gender-based violence.¹⁰⁹ While the socioeconomic impacts of the pandemic on migrant women may have prompted their return, migrant women’s lower income – or lack of income – seems to have also created obstacles for them to afford the costs of return, as can be seen in a survey of overseas Filipino workers.¹¹⁰

The case of Ethiopian women primarily working as domestic migrants, who returned from the Gulf countries after escaping exploitation or being deported due to irregular status, provides a telling example of the reintegration difficulties associated with return of failure.¹¹¹ Their reintegration journey is paved with obstacles, including coping with trauma from their time in destination countries and stigma from their communities for not meeting their migration goals.¹¹² These have in turn undermined their labour market inclusion in an already difficult socioeconomic context.

Categorizations of specific return situations as successful return or return of failure remain, however, highly context specific. Returns that could be termed as failures may not be considered so due to prevailing gender norms and have even been resorted to by some migrant men as a strategy to reclaim their masculinity and the social status associated with their gender in their country of origin. This has been the case, for instance, for some married migrant men from Africa in the United Kingdom, whose spouses earn more than them and who have seen their breadwinner status threatened. These migrant men have decided to return to their countries of origin where they enjoy a high social status by virtue of their gender, irrespective of the income gained abroad.¹¹³ Return migration for purposes of reclaiming masculinity was also observed among South Korean men who returned to their country of origin in response to the perceived marginalization of their masculinity in the United States.¹¹⁴

Return migration may also entail the negotiation of different gender norms between countries of destination and origin. Some migrant men in the Gulf countries have been found to have internalized more traditional and patriarchal gender norms and transferred them into their households upon return.¹¹⁵ Migrant women returning to their country of origin may also experience issues in re-adapting to the social norms of their communities of origin.¹¹⁶ This is particularly evident when return migrants’ occupations and lifestyles in the country of destination would lead to stigma and socioeconomic exclusion, if disclosed. Such disclosure can happen through transnational social networks through which information is channelled between destination and origin countries. For example, both returned migrant women and men could face stigma if they worked as sex workers, even if as victims of human trafficking,¹¹⁷ or freely lived their diverse gender identities in the country of destination.¹¹⁸ The intersection of gender and sexuality thus influences reintegration.

Gendered difficulties in labour market reintegration and social inclusion in turn negatively impact returned migrants’ health, together with health problems that migrants, especially women, have when coming back to their country of origin.¹¹⁹ These health issues can be highly gendered as linked to experiences in countries of destination, deportation or return decisions and stigmatization upon return. These gendered health issues are compounded by gendered barriers to health-care access, including in terms of lack of information and discrimination related to sex work abroad, including as victims of human trafficking.