Patricia R. Pessar. “The Role of Gender, Households, and Social Networks in the Migration Process: A Review and Appraisal.”

a.       HISTORICAL OVERVIEW

                                                  i.      Women were absent from migration literature in the 1950s, 1960s, and 1970s because scholars were influenced by neoclassical theory which viewed males as more apt to be risk-takers and achievers while women remained guardians of community tradition

1.      This period is also characterized by a tendency to ignore women’s contributions to economic, political, and social life

2.      Women were viewed largely as dependents rather than as willing migrants themselves

                                                ii.      The advent of feminist theory in the 1970s brought women’s migratory experiences into the scholarship

1.      However, at this time gender was viewed simply as a variable rather than a new theoretical concept

2.      The discovery that migrant women worked at much higher rates in the receiving country than in the sending country was not contextualized in the effect it had on society

                                              iii.      Social networks and households have been used to help social scientists explain the contingent agency in migration between pure rational choice models and structural determinism models

1.      “While macrostructural transformations are understood to unleash migration pressures, it is families and social networks, we are told, that respond to these pressures and determine which members of households and communities actually emigrate” (p. 55)

b.      HOUSEHOLDS, SOCIAL NETWORKS, AND GENDER IN MIGRATION THEORIES

                                                  i.      Neoclassical theory suggests that the macroeconomic wage gap between countries inspires individual workers to make the rational choice to leave their low-wage homeland for the gains of the higher-wage host country

1.      Gender is considered just one variable in the cost-benefit calculation and does not consider the differences in social contexts between male and female migrants

                                                ii.      “New economics of migration” (NEM) suggests that the decision to migrate is undertaken at the household level, and not the level of the solitary migrant; households both seek to increase earnings and minimize risks

1.      This model still ignores gender, as it focuses solely on the economic cost-benefit analysis but does not consider the household’s political economy of migration (for example, a Dominican woman may go abroad not only to earn money but also to gain sexual freedom)

                                              iii.      Network theory argues that the social capital of migrants also makes up an important part of the individual and household economic strategy, including migration

1.      Network analyses have been used to explain individual intentions to migrate, the process of migrant adaptation, and the probabilities of emigration to specific places

                                              iv.      Historical-structuralist perspective says subsistence economies have been destabilized by capitalism, creating a surplus of labor which is then carried from the periphery to the core by the same forces of globalization responsible for creating the surplus in the first place

1.      This approach moves away from the micro-level individual decision and looks at the interplay of capitalism, globalization, imperialism, and so on, but is perhaps “good political-economy but insufficient migration theory”

                                                v.      Transnational migration theory looks at the political, economic, and social conditions that promote transnational network formation, as well as the material and social capital that crosses national borders

1.      Household members often develop economic strategies that transcend national labor markets, and perform social reproduction across national borders; however, gender is still underrepresented in this field of scholarship

c.       SHORTCOMINGS IN THE CONCEPTUALIZATION OF HOUSEHOLDS AND SOCIAL NETWORKS

                                                  i.      Households are viewed as collective decision-making units, when in fact not all members of the household may be comfortable with the decision to migrate and power structures exist within the household itself

1.      Researchers have also viewed households as passive units whose members are the “losers” in the larger market economy; this is not always the case

2.      The household as a rational decision-maker also limits the number of economic strategies that households can adopt, and suggests that there is no dissention over the objectives of “economic maximization”

3.      Kinship, gender, and class ideologies can play a role in shaping how individuals and households view consumption needs, labor power, and the range of opportunities available

                                                ii.      Social networks are often gendered, as access to certain parts of the network may depend on gender and kinship

1.      Patriarchal norms may have to be weighed against the needed earnings of female family members, which may influence the people in the networks trusted to take care of the female migrant

2.      Men and women often have entirely different social networks even within the same households

3.      Networks may have altruistic values, but may also be avenues for exploitation

d.      ENGENDERING MIGRATION THEORY AND RESEARCH

                                                  i.      Various economic conditions differently affect men and women, which may provide them with contrasting incentives and constraints on immigration

1.      The lack of desirable mates in Ireland prompted some women to migrate to the U.S.; the growth of female-dominated service professions, such as health care and domestic work, may have greater “pull” for women than men

2.      Immigrant women and men receive differential returns for their education and experience; this is also racialized, as Indian, Iranian, and Japanese men are able to use their education to obtain higher status than native-born workers, while no women were able to (and presumably no other nationalities)

                                                ii.      Migration can be emancipating or subjugating for women, with gains made in one arena (perhaps the household) while gender subordination may continue in others (the workplace or community)

                                              iii.      Men and women experience settlement, return, and transmigration differently

1.      Gains in gender equality are central to women’s desire  to settle abroad permanently, while men may want to return home rapidly to regain their status; this sometimes manifests in women spending more money to make their life abroad comfortable while men are more frugal, saving for their return

e.       A REENCOUNTER WITH FEMINIST STUDIES

                                                  i.      Immigrant families are buffeted by external forces, including racist/sexist legislation and structural impediments to the male breadwinner role; immigrant women have thus assumed wage-earning positions as a result of severe economic need

1.      Immigrant women frequently perform the lowest-paid and most insecure work, suggesting that work is not an indication of their strength within the home and marketplace

2.      Immigrant women thus are expected to hold together their families and use their economic gains to escape from husband-dominated subordination

                                                ii.      Some immigrant families may benefit from household extension, ie, incorporating other adults into the household to provide additional income

                                              iii.      Among Dominican and Cuban immigrants, women’s “retirement” to the domestic sphere is seen as a sign of higher status; women thus must choose whether they will elevate the whole family’s status by “retiring” or whether they will maintain the gender parity gains they’ve made by continuing to work outside the home

1.      “Some women of color, in contrast to their white counterparts, view unpaid domestic work – having children and maintaining families – more as a form of resistance to racist oppression than as a form of exploitation by men” (Espiritu 1997)

                                              iv.      Racial and class inequalities abroad are felt more strongly than those based on gender, uniting female migrants with their male conationals