Female migrants’ work is more stable, but post-2008 recession, they’re increasingly confined to unpaid housework and care.
Author
Ruchira Sen, Associate Professor, Jindal School of Journalism and Communication, Haryana, Sonipat, India
Summary
A common thread of statistical invisibility runs through the interactions of gender and migration. Gender roles confine women to unpaid or low-paid work that tends to be ‘invisible’ to theory and policy. Migration and its associated problems of assimilation create a workforce that policymakers ignore. Gendered migration also presents macroeconomic implications. Jayati Ghosh (2018) shows that sending countries with a higher percentage of women out-migrants have more stable remittance inflows. This chapter examines Ghosh’s hypothesis that female migrants are typically employed in less recession-prone jobs through the experience of immigrants in the USA.
Based on Current Population Survey and American Time Use Survey data, this chapter examines the time use of Asian and Mexican immigrants – the largest proportion of US immigrants – in paid and unpaid work. Findings indicate that while time spent in paid work for immigrant women is more stable, it is gradually declining in the long term since the recession of 2008. This decline in paid work is accompanied by a gradual increase in unpaid work. Thereby, while the work of immigrant women is more resistant to market forces, there is a growing confinement of immigrant women to unpaid housework and care following the 2008 crisis.
Published in: Development, Transformations and the Human Condition: Essays in Honour of Jayati Ghosh
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