Visualizing Feminized International Migration Flows in the 1990s

Abstract

Although migration was relatively gender balanced for much of the twentieth century, in recent decades there has been an increase in women-predominant or feminized flows, often indicative of a demand for care work migrants, who provide domestic work, childcare, elder care, and other forms of care for wealthier families (Parreñas 2012). Yet gender imbalances in migration remain understudied by quantitative scholars (Donato and Gabaccia 2015). Using an unusually global World Bank bilateral migration data set (Özden et al. 2011), we estimate (Abel 2013) and map the largest feminized transnational flows, in which women constitute more than 53 percent of migrants (Donato and Gabaccia 2015) between 1990 and 2000 (Figure 1). Our visualization depicts movements among the 51 countries with the largest absolute feminized flows. Most of these feminized flows occur within regions. Yet flows to countries such as the United States, Canada, France, and the Great Britain, and flows from countries such as the Philippines, Indonesia, Russia, and China, often traverse regions. Migration within Asia, as well from Asia, is particularly interesting. The largest feminized movements within and between South East and East Asia include flows from Malaysia to Singapore and from China to Hong Kong and Japan. Smaller feminized flows exist from the Philippines to Japan and Taiwan, from Indonesia to Taiwan and Singapore, and from Korea to Japan. Many of these flows-including those from the Philippines to Saudi Arabia, which are very intensely feminized-likely indicate care work (Oishi 2005).

Homicide Rates and the Multiple Dimensions of Urbanization: A Longitudinal, Cross-National Analysis

“…Without FIML, the common default of listwise deletion in Model 1 (n = 113) excluded three OECD countries and 38 countries with populations of over one million, which is normal with the common criteria used for sample selection in the quantitative literature (see Appendix B). To be clear, in the social sciences, generally, the issue of missing data continues to be handled by way of listwise deletion or largely ignored, even in studies published in social science journals with an explicit focus on innovative empirical research [46][47][48][49].…”

State work–family contexts and the wage gap by gender and parenthood

“…Cross‐national research on gender wage gaps has helped uncover contextual factors, such as policies and economic conditions, that are associated with differences in the magnitude of the wage gaps (Hegewisch & Gornick, 2011; Misra et al, 2007; Misra & Strader, 2013). Although fruitful, cross‐national comparisons cannot fully capture the fragmented and incomplete nature of work–family support in the United States because the crucial roles played by the market and migrant domestic workers (Cortés, 2008; Cortés & Tessada, 2011; Duffy, 2020; Furtado & Hock, 2010; Hochschild, 2000; Leal et al, 2019; Milkman et al, 1998; Misra et al, 2007; Ruppanner et al, 2019) are often left unexamined. It is also difficult to account for the vast differences in work–family policy approaches that exist within the United States.…”

“…With increasing inequality among women, the demand for migrant domestic workers to provide care for well‐off families has skyrocketed (Duffy, 2020; Milkman et al, 1998). Hence, the United States leads in terms of feminized migration inflows and its volume (Leal et al, 2019), while lagging behind other high‐income countries in work–family policies. However, the extent of globalization in local labor markets vary (Duffy, 2020; Lin & Weiss, 2019).…”