International Women’s Day: Remembering the Female Outliers That Have Made the World Through Migration

Today, March 8 2022, we commemorate the International Women’s Day. We at Outlier Legal Services want to dedicate this day to the female outliers that have left their homes in order to seek a better life somewhere else. Today, we remember those outliers, their achievements but also their hardships in their never ending fight against inequality.

Women account for 48% of the world’s migrant population, according to the World Migration Report 2022, published by the United Nations agency International Organization for Migration. Around 135 million women are international migrants as of 2021, of about 281 million migrants in general.

That publication shows that between 2019 and 2021 the international female migrant population grew almost 4%, which could be associated with Covid-19 disruptions in their home countries. In total, 3,5% of the world’s female population doesn’t live in the country they are originally from, compared to 3,7% of men.

“There is a larger number of male than female international migrants worldwide, and the gap has increased over the past 20 years. In 2000, the male to female split was 50,6% to 49,4%(…). The share of female migrants has been decreasing since 2000, while the share of male migrants has increased by 1.4 percentage points,” the report says.

Costa Rica has an opposite trend. UN data from 2019 shows that 52% of the migrants living in this country are women. Costa Rica is also the biggest receiver of migrants in Central America, with over half a million foreigners living in the country. That means that more than 10% of its inhabitants are from somewhere else!

The hardships female migrants endure

Data from the International Labour Organization (ILO) implies that is harder for female migrants to work than it is to men. In 2019, only about four in every ten migrant workers were female, even though their share in the migrant pie is almost half. Obviously, this doesn’t take into account that migrant women are also expected to be caregivers.

“Economic factors remain the primary driver of migration and while women migrants are engaged in both formal and informal employment activities, the majority continue to be employed in the informal economy, including in areas such as trade and domestic work,” the World Migration Report 2022 points out.

Women often migrate as “dependent family members of other migrants or to marry someone in another country,” the UN noted some years ago. “Most migrant women move voluntarily, but women and girls are also forced migrants leaving their countries in order to flee conflict, persecution, environmental degradation, natural disasters…”

“Migration is related to the level of empowerment of women, with migration levels among women being higher when female earning potential is more highly valued in the country of origin and women have access to local employment and income-generating opportunities,” that same document adds.

Nevertheless, the trend of the last decades underscores the importance of independence for female migrants. Instead of joining family members overseas, it is now more common for women to move to wealthy countries to search for a better life through better working conditions and possibilities.

However, “migrant women living abroad are more likely to be overqualified for these jobs and earn less than men, and they send more of their incomes to families back home,” according to National Geographic. Their migration usually also weakens their autonomy and agency, and their human rights are more vulnerable to infringement.

Omnipresent gender gaps

Most of the time, the reasons for women to migrate are crossed by gender gaps in their home countries, but they tend to find some other gender gaps in the places they move to. Data from the ILO shows that in rich countries female migrants are better educated, but even that doesn’t help them dodge gender gaps.

Even though they are better educated in high-income countries, migrant women are less likely to be employed. If they do find a job, its quality will likely not be the best. On top of that, they face a significant gender pay gap. This is all according to data from the ILO gathered in order to offer some insights about female migrant population.

“While women often have a lower employment-to-population ratio than men in general, the gender gap in employment tends to be wider among migrants,” the ILO said. They “are also at a disadvantage in terms of the quality of the jobs they obtain. In a large majority of countries, they are more likely to be engaged in elementary occupations than male migrants.”

The gender pay gap is normal in society as a whole, but it is much wider among migrants in most countries. “They face a large gender pay gap in many countries. The average monthly earnings of female migrants are more than 20% lower than those of male migrants in 37 out of the 60 countries for which data are available,” the study says.

In summary, migrant women face what is usually called “double disadvantage,” meaning they have drawbacks both for being female and migrant. “They generally have lower employment and higher unemployment rates than both – foreign-born men and native-born women, and actually the gender gaps are often larger for immigrants than for the native-born,” the OECD states.

The effects of female migration

The UN says that women who move to another country and participate in the labor market “tend to gain independence and autonomy, leading to a change in gender relations within their families.” They also “display considerable agency” and “contribute to the economic development” of their origin and destination countries.

For example, they contribute to the economic development of their countries of destination with their skills, talents and competencies, and to their countries of origin by sending money and resources and by sharing their skills and experience when they return to their homeland. They also help other family members migrate.

“As migrants, women are sources of remittances that may be used to improve the well-being of other family members and foster economic growth. In countries of destination, migrant women work to improve their own and their family’s standards of living, and they often press for changed gender relations within their families.”

The UN concludes that it is also likely for women who migrate and participate in the labor market overseas to get involved in politics and activism through non-governmental organizations that lobby for gender equality. This means that, when they return home, they share their knowledge about the importance of equality and feminism.