Migration of Women to Cities: The Asian Situation in Comparative Perspective

Abstract

This article examines the participation of women in rural-to-urban migration, with a special focus on patterns in Asia. Most studies of migration have focused on male migrants or heads of households (See, reviews by Simmons et al., 1977; Yap, 1977 for example) on the assumption that females frequently migrate only as part of families and therefore the causes and consequences of their migration are those of their spouses and families. Recently, however, studies of migration in some Asian countries have reported indications of increasing numbers of young women joining the migrant flow to the cities, many of them going on their own to find work in the service, manufacturing and informal sectors (Fawcett et al., 1984). The causes and consequences of female migration appear to be different from those of male migration because women have different social and economic roles in the family and in the economy.