Migrant Women in Male-Dominated Sectors of the Labour Market: A Research Agenda

In recent years, the great increase in female labour migration, particularly those moving to take up jobs as domestic workers, sex workers and nurses, has excited much interest amongst those researching migration (UNIFEM, 2000; Ehrenreich and Hochschild, 2003; Castles and Miller, 2003). This has complemented the long-standing interest amongst feminist researchers on the experiences of female family migrants (Phizacklea, 1983; Salaff and Greve, 2004). Both sets of literature ascribe women’s mobility to their participation in feminised roles, as wives of primary male migrants, or as women who perform socially reproductive tasks within a range of highly feminised sectors of the labour market. Feminised gender roles therefore appear to be an important part of women’s migratory experience, but also an essential lens through which women’s migration is considered by researchers. In this paper, I aim to expand current literature on migrant women by exploring some issues that emerge when examining their presence in a male-dominated sector of the labour market – information and communication technology (ICT). The paper does not provide an empirical overview of gender issues as they pertain to female migrant ICT workers, but rather it interrogates the frames within which female migration is understood. The rest of the paper is divided into three substantive parts. The fi rst part provides a brief overview of how current literature on female migration POPULATION, SPACE AND PLACE Popul. Space Place 14, 43–57 (2008) Published online 4 October 2007 in Wiley InterScience (www.interscience.wiley.com) DOI: 10.1002/psp.472