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The effect of migration on the gender dynamics of family relationships has long been a major focus of gender and migration scholarship (Espiritu, 2002:47). During the 1970s and 1980s, this literature generally followed a modernisation narrative that described the trajectory of Third World women from male domination and oppression in their countries of origin to a new life of paid employment and emancipation in the West. As well as an increased level of power and autonomy within their families, migrant women’s spatial mobility (Goldring, 1996:318), and their access to valuable social and economic resources (Pessar, 1999a:577-587) were also said to expand.25 In this section of the chapter I discuss two important and interconnected themes in gender and migration scholarship: the emancipation narrative, and paid employment. I note significant changes that have occurred in the theorisation of both these topics, and use a range of historical and contemporary examples from the literature to illustrate these shifts.

An early example of scholarship that proclaimed the link between migration and emancipation for migrant women is Abadan-Unat’s (1977) research into the effects of migration on the lives of Turkish migrant women living in Germany. The author claimed that ‘[m]igrant families become more egalitarian, their family relations become more open, [and] more emphasis is placed on achievement and independence of children. Women also come to exert more influence on decision-making’ (Abadan- Unat, 1977:36). The causal relationship between international migration and the emancipation of women has since been reassessed by gender and migration scholars (Hondagneu-Sotelo, 1999:565-566). More contemporary research into the impact of

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Similarly, Gmelch and Gmelch (1995:470) found significant gender differences in the satisfaction and readjustment of return migrants to Barbados, Ireland and Newfoundland. In all three societies, women were less satisfied than men to be 'home'. The greater dissatisfaction among women appears to stem from their limited employment opportunities and a range of other social factors.

migration on the status of migrant women tends to acknowledge the many axes of difference that affect their position, both in their countries of origin, and in their respective countries of settlement.

This more recent body of work tends to suggest that while migration may lead to gains in some areas of migrant women’s lives, it can simultaneously cause losses in others. As Anthias (2000:36) notes, ‘[t]he multi-faceted and complex nature of women's position does not permit us to see migration in simple terms as either leading always to a loss, or always to a gain, in social status’ (see also Akpinar, 2003:428; Hugo, 2002:41; Y. Zhou, 2000:445-448). Similarly, Hirsch (1999:1347) concludes that ‘[t]here is not, and never will be, just one answer to the question of how migration affects gender’. Next, I present three studies that illustrate the diverse and sometimes contradictory effects of migration on the position and status of migrant women.

Kurien (1999) describes migration as a mixed blessing for Indian women in the United States. On the one hand, she says, migration and settlement lead to empowerment for women because the majority enter the workforce in the United States, and thus make important contributions to the economic welfare of their families. In addition, Indian women are seen as cultural custodians, with a critical role to play in the passing on of cultural and religious values. On the other hand, Kurien (1999:650) maintains that the image of the Indian woman as a ‘virtuous and self-sacrificing homemaker’ is central to the construction of the Indian community as a ‘model minority’. Living up to this image, the author suggests, causes the suppression of dissent and diversity and the cover-up of the physical and sexual abuse of women in the local community. Migrant women victims of domestic violence are very unlikely to reveal their abuse to researchers. Those who do, she concludes, are thought of as ‘traitors to the community’ (Kurien, 1999:650).

Parrenas (2005) examines the constitution of gender in the families of Filipino women who migrate alone to the United States, the United Kingdom and the Gulf region. Despite the fact that migration increases their economic power with respect to their husbands, and places them outside their own domestic sphere, the allocation of reproductive work to women remains essentially unchanged by their departure. ‘The division of labor in these households’, the author claims, ‘usually relegates nurturing

tasks to women: fathers minimize their housework; migrant mothers nurture children from afar; and eldest daughters and female kin bear the brunt of household work left behind by migrant mothers’ (Parrenas, 2005:244). Parrenas (2005:243-244) describes this as a ‘gender paradox’, and concludes that while migration may result in women’s increased economic power, it has not led to a more egalitarian division of labour in the family. Instead, women’s migration has added to the household burdens of women left behind in the Philippines.

The negotiation of migrant women’s gendered identities is also the subject of Yeoh and Willis’s (2005) research on elite Singaporean women in China. Those women who leave Singapore as accompanying spouses,26 they explain, find themselves giving up their careers to focus on domestic responsibilities after they arrive in China. They claim that migrant women are not so much ‘de-skilled’ as ‘re-domesticated’ (Yeoh & Willis, 2005:211). The authors also describe the experiences of female ‘lead’ migrants, those who relocate to China as entrepreneurs in their own right. While migrant women who accompany their male spouses take up the responsibility for childcare and housework after arriving in China, the same does not follow for the male partners of lead female migrants. Instead, like the situation described by Parrenas (above), this reproductive work devolves onto other women: servants, secretaries or childcare workers (Yeoh & Willis, 2005:220). In short, international migration has not altered largely patriarchal norms which assign women responsibility for the maintenance of the home and the care of children.