Gender, Migration, and Law: Crossing Borders and Bridging Disciplines

Abstract

The gendered nature of the immigration experience is shaped and reinforced by law, legal consciousness, and the normative understandings they help constitute. This article provides an overview of the role of gender in migration processes from a law and society perspective, and includes an empirical focus on the new immigration to Italy and Spain as an illustration of the utility of such an approach. Beginning with a brief summary of the literatures of feminist jurisprudence and law and migration, respectively, the small body of scholarship at the intersection of these fields is reviewed. The author then examines the new immigration to Italy and Spain and argues that this immigration and the policies that shape it highlight the role of the state in gendering immigrant labor and offer new angles from which to consider the interplay of gender, race, migration status, and marginality. In concluding, the author proposes that such exploration of immigrants' experiences in southern Europe reveals the surprising complexity of immigrants' multiple marginalities, and exposes the powerful contingencies of economic context, prevailing stereotypes, the particulars of state policy, and the agentive power of people struggling to survive.

Undocumented Migrants in Canada: A Scope Literature Review on Health, Access to Services, and Working Conditions

“…Gender variations in health outcomes-Despite a clear indication that non-status women are more vulnerable to poor social and health conditions, gender and migration status continue to be conceptualized independently. The current literature does not address how the structural conditions of undocumented status uniquely affect the health and wellbeing of particular genders [9]. For instance, personal communication with service providers in Toronto, suggests that alcohol and substance abuse is higher among non-status men, while non-status women experience higher levels of depression.…”

“…This marginalized condition can be described as having a domino effect. As identified in this review, undocumented migrants consistently seek anonymity or avoid exposure as a form self-protection, but this may be inadvertently creating additional barriers to their relative integration into the "host" country's social and economic life, which in turn decreases their ability to develop a social network and increases their vulnerability [9]. Social isolation, depression, fear, anxiety, and stress are pervasive outcomes associated with status, and there is reason to suggest that alcohol and substance abuse may also be a relevant issue among undocumented individuals [18].…”

‘Illegal Migrants’, Gender and Vulnerability: The Case of the EU’s Returns Directive

“…These risks are highlighted for the least economically and socially privileged migrant women who often work irregularly in the more menial jobs in non-unionised sectors and in the private sphere (doing domestic work, for example) (Anderson 2000;Kofman 2008). However, there are also gendered benefits to domestic and care work, often for particular ethnic groups-while it is more difficult to maintain pay agreements and regular hours, due to gendered (and racialised) demand for female workers, some women in these sectors (such as Filipina domestic workers) may also have a higher chance of regularising their situation than men of the same nationalities (Calavita 2006).…”

Trabajo doméstico y migraciones latinoamericanas. Desde Argentina, hallazgos y reflexiones frente a los destinos extrarregionales / Domestic Work and Latin American Migration. From Argentina, Findings and Reflections on Extra-Regional Destinations

“…Este análisis es relevante puesto que las especialistas teóricas del derecho han mostrado cómo la ley suele reforzar o mitigar las construcciones de género. Por ello ha sido un interés constante analizar la discriminación legal contra ellas, así como reflexionar y accionar para combatir esa situación (Calavita, 2006;Facio Montejo, 1992).…”