Migration,Health,and Gender and Its Effects on Housing Security of Ghanaian Women

Abstract

We explored how migration influences our understanding of health and housing security of women who have or have not migrated to find work in Ghana. This article focuses on housing security. We used a multisite ethnographic research design. The setting was two distinct contexts in Ghana: a rural village and an urban context. We interviewed 44 women. Thematic content analysis was conducted. The main themes that emerged were decisions influencing migration, housing security, and the relationship between housing and health. Women voiced concerns about health related to housing conditions – for example, its effect on upper respiratory infections. We conclude that improving housing and services to the urban poor can have a positive impact on their health. Available, affordable, suitable, and adequate housing has the potential to contribute to economic growth, create more jobs, and improve the well-being of migrant women and, subsequently, their families in Northern Ghana.

Introduction

The globalization process challenges traditional concepts of the social determinants of health where the emphasis is placed on individual responsibility, set against the contextual background and social influences that effect how people have to live to survive economically. Rapid economic globalization can create poverty and inequalities especially in low-income countries such as Ghana. “Understanding the nature of, and linkages between, globalization and inequality is crucial because disparities abound in access to needs such as shelter, land, food and clean water, sustainable livelihoods, technology, and information. Inequalities in all these realms pose challenges to human security and environmental sustainability” (National Research Council of the National Academies, 2010, p. 83). Globalization makes the role of governments more visible particularly in how they address poverty. This visibility contributes to accountability, to refine and question social policies which directly influence populations affected.

Driven by the global economic crisis, families are developing a variety of strategies for survival, including self-directed female migration (Adepoju, 2010). There is little known about the health of women who migrate, especially in low-income countries. We conducted a study with the objective of exploring how migration influences understandings of health and health behaviors by working women who have or have not migrated in Ghana. Insights from this study enrich our understanding of the intersection of migration, gender, and health. In this article, we focus on housing security and its intersection with women’s health.

Background

Many countries in Sub-Saharan Africa are experiencing increased migration of the poor from rural to urban areas to find work. This contributes to a lack of accessible and adequate housing in urban areas. The rapid increase in urbanization has affected the ability of governments to build essential infrastructure to ensure a safe and healthy life in cities (Adjei & Buor, 2012). Globally, poverty has increased in both urban and rural settings. More people live in urban areas, with the most urbanized region in the world being North America with 82% of the population in urban areas in 2014 (United Nation, Department of Economic and Social Affairs, Population Division, 2014). In contrast, Africa remains mostly rural with only 40% of the African population living in urban areas. Africa is, however, expected to urbanize at a faster rate than any other regions in the world with an expected 56% of the population urbanized by 2050 (United Nation, Department of Economic and Social Affairs, Population Division, 2014). Irrespective of the increased urbanization trend and the rural to urban migration in low-income countries, rural areas continue to house a substantial proportion of the population of Africa. In 2014, Africa and Asia housed nearly 90% of the world’s rural communities (United Nation, Department of Economic and Social Affairs, Population Division, 2014).

Most of the rural population in Sub-Saharan Africa is deprived of socioeconomic development opportunities and thus lack the health care infrastructure one would find in more urbanized cities. Rural areas have a larger prevalence of absolute poverty characterized by a lack of access to educational and health care facilities, poor housing, poor drinking water, poor health, and food insecurity (Adjei & Buor, 2012). Simultaneously, rapid urbanization in Sub-Saharan Africa contributed to a growing burden of disease among vulnerable urban populations, as well as increased socioeconomic inequalities and associated impacts on health. Migration to urban locales is associated with push and pull factors and, frequently, better job opportunities. People migrating to cities for work leave behind their families, homes, and their social networks (Patil, 2014).

In West Africa, the reasons for and impacts of migration are not unique. The majority of the poor people in Ghana, our study location, live in the Northern Region. Most of the population in this region is dependent on agricultural activities that are rainfall dependent. Rainfall fluctuates from season to season, affecting harvests. Poor harvests cause people to migrate in search of alternate financial sources. These migrants seeking work tend to have minimal education and are recruited to do high-risk jobs, making them vulnerable to exploitation (The World Bank, 2011). In a seminal study, Arthur (1991) argues that in this region, which has a culture of large family structures, valued kinships, and strong community ties, these influences affect labor migration because “the family is a decision making unit and the unit of economic maximization” (p. 78). The family will decide collectively who to send to an external labor force, with the expectations of sending money home to support the family financially. Migration becomes an income generation strategy, where the individual migrant supports his or her extended family. The migration process is additionally facilitated by the kinship connections and interpersonal friendships that migrants potentially have with those who have already migrated (Arthur, 1991).

We highlight the role of women in this male-dominated family structure and decision making when it comes to the migratory process. Historically, women were the ones who made the plans and arrangements after the decision was made to migrate. The role of women in migration decision making was influenced by the preference for sons to migrate to support the family financially and subsequently raise the social status of the family as a whole (Arthur, 1991). A more recent study indicated that the motivation to migrate differs considerably by gender (The World Bank, 2011). The feminization of migration is a clear trend within migration in the last few decades. The gender distribution among migrants is about equal although female migration is higher in low-income countries. More women migrate to obtain work and support their families (Neyts, 2015). Women migrants are often younger than men; 47% of all women migrants are younger than 26 years of age. We note “that many of these young women and girls end up with work that puts them at risk, as porters [carriers of goods] in markets sleeping in the open air” (The World Bank, 2011, p. 71). The effects and conditions of female migration is an underexamined topic. Little is known about the intersection of gender, housing, and migration as social determinants of health in Ghana. The research questions which directed the study were the following:

• Research Question 1: How does place influence women who have or have not migrated within Ghana?

• Research Question 2: What are their perceptions of health and housing security?

• Research Question 3: How does decisions to migrate or not to migrate influence women’s housing security?

Method

We conducted a multisite ethnographic study, which involved moving between two data collection sites and conceptually connecting the commonalities and differences in women’s perception of health and housing (Falzon, 2009). This methodological design allowed us to gather both contextual data on the social determinants of health and normative gendered health beliefs and practices, and in-depth data on the range of variations in individual gendered health and housing experiences in two different sites. This allowed us to highlight unique local experiences and issues, and compare and contrast experiences across two distinct contexts in Ghana—a rural village in the Ashanti Region and an urban context, Accra, the capital city of Ghana. Documenting the unique aspects of emplaced experiences, as well as the connections between place and housing security, allowed us to articulate findings that are transferable to other places in Ghana where migrant women work and live in similar circumstances.

Women who had lived their lives in or nearby their birth place/village and women who had migrated to Accra from Northern Ghana were recruited. Recruitment at both sites relied on local connections that developed through earlier partnerships and word-of-mouth (i.e., snowball sampling) strategies. A partnership with the rural village was long standing and developed through prior clinical placement and research collaborations. The village was situated in the Central Region of Ghana. Dwellings in the village are mainly compound houses built of mud or concrete blocks. The compound house is often square-shaped with rooms (anything up to eight) occupied by households or individuals. The construction of these dwellings is often in phases. It can be either “fihankra” (completed) or “fifa” (half completed). Fihankra usually has a bathroom and kitchen. Toilets, bathrooms, and kitchens, in the case of fifa, are mostly constructed outside, separated from the main rooms.

In Accra, a partnership was developed with the community leader of an informal settlement close to a market where migrant women live when working in Accra. Women share living spaces that consisted of preconstructed rooms with communal toilets and bathrooms. One migrant woman acted as the intermediary to support the recruitment process. We also relied on snowball sampling to acquire the necessary number of participants. Migrant women mostly traveled from the Northern Region of Ghana, more or less a 12 to 18 hour bus ride to Accra. Traveling back to their families depended on how much money they earned to support their family for a period of time, typically once or twice a year.

We interviewed 23 women who had migrated to the city and 21 women who stayed in the rural village. We collected demographic data of all the participants. The majority of the women in both the village and the market did not know their date of birth, but they were mostly of childbearing age and had between one and nine children. Culturally, it is not important to keep track of their date of birth (Sullivan, O’Brien, & Mwini-Nyaledzigbor, 2016), and the majority of the participants could not tell us their age. The number of participants depended on data saturation and additionally when we had rich (quality) and thick (quantity) data to develop an understanding of the phenomenon under study (Fusch & Ness, 2015). Interviews in Accra were conducted with the help of local research assistants under the guidance of the researcher. Examples of the interview questions are as follows: “Tell me about your living arrangement [probe: Housing type, location, suitability, running water and sewage, power, how many people in the house, how many rooms]” and “Tell me how your living arrangements influence your health [probe: positive and negative—physical and social factors].”

The research assistants were local students who have, at the time of the study, completed their undergraduate degree in nursing and were able to speak the different languages of the migrant women. A local PhD student acted as the research assistant and supported the data collection in the village in the Ashanti Region. The research assistants underwent training and practiced how to act as interpreters. Interviews were conducted in the language of choice of the participants and digitally recorded with prior consent of participants. Consent was mainly obtained orally. The interviews were transcribed verbatim by the local research assistants, translated to English, and back translated to confirm accuracy of the translation. The quality of the back translations was checked by the two Ghanaian researchers. Data analysis from the interviews was based on thematic content analysis (van den Hoonaard, 2012). In other words, data were examined for patterns on what was said, as opposed to a narrative analysis of the content. Codes were formulated through a line-by-line analysis of concepts identified in the data. Comparative analysis of codes, and participants’ use of codes, led to the development of categories. Themes were developed from the categories that emerged from the data and compared with concepts reported in the literature.

Ethical approval was received from the Human Research Ethics Review Board at the University of Alberta (Pro 00049130) and the Noguchi Memorial Institute for Medical Research Institutional Review Board, Ghana (IRB 00001276). We used pseudonyms when we referred to any participants’ quotes to protect our participants’ identity and privacy. Each participant received 20 Cedi (approximately US$5.20) for participation. This was in congruence with Ghanaian cultural values related to receiving gifts.

Results

The main themes that emerged from the data were the following: decisions influencing migration, housing security (availability, affordability, suitability, and adequacy), and the relationship between housing and health.

Decisions Influencing Migration

Migrant women told us that farming in Northern Ghana often does not produce enough to sufficiently support the family. Women migrated progressively from Northern Ghana to find work in Accra, the capital city of Ghana, to support their families back home. One of these women shared,

You know we do farm work, so before we used to have good harvest but now when we farm we are not able to harvest much. That is why I said to myself I have to come here. (Maya)

In addition, families do not have the finances to pay for any major family events. Maya described it as follows:

Before, my husband had enough but after the death of his father and we had the funeral ceremonies he became broke and had “nothing in his hands.” When it happened like that, I used to go to the market to sell some foodstuffs for money which wasn’t enough so when my daughter took her final exams, I decided to come here and carry some “kaya” [load] to make some money.

Women also wanted to improve the social situation of their children by ensuring that they continued their education. Safina commented,

It is my child who took the exams, so if she has to continue with school I will suffer, so I decided to come carry some “kaya” to help her further the education. Perhaps, someday God will help her “stand at a better place in life,” attain a better status in life.

Alternatively, husbands and children from women living in the village, also work in the nearest city to supplement the family’s income whereas they continue farming. Rabbi shared how her oldest son helped to support the family:

He goes to town every Friday after school because it’s weekend so he goes to do some job. He’s 15 years old. He has to go to town on Friday, and spends the weekend there and comes back in the evening, Sunday. And early morning, today, Monday, he goes to school.

Julia talked about her husband’s work and support:

He is a driver. Yes, he gives me money but sometimes when he is coming from work he buys some food stuff and brings home. Yeah, is it cheaper in [name of city where he works] than here to buy stuff.

Housing Security: Availability, Affordability, Adequacy, and Suitability

Women experienced different levels of housing security irrespective of whether they had decided to migrate or not.

Availability

Women who migrated to Accra were mainly there to save money to support their families. Having to save as much as they could to send home affected their choices of where they could live. They lived in informal settlements around the markets where housing was more affordable and to make it easier to reach the workplace. Joy summed it up as follows:

It will definitely affect me. It reduces the amount of money that you are able to have. But you also want a better life for your family so you have to do it.

Women living in the village close to their birth place had little to say about the availability of housing.

Affordability

Affordable housing is defined as housing and housing-related expenses that do not exceed 30% of the household income (McKinsey Global Institute, 2014). Our participants shared experiences related to their housing and housing-related expenses. There was a vast difference between rural and urban areas.

The participants who migrated mostly rented only a space in a larger room to sleep. It was difficult to estimate how much the women earned per day and what percentage they spent on housing. They shared that their income was irregular. Some women said they might earn 50 Cedi (US$13) on a good day but other days, they might not earn anything. Rafina said,

Okay the day that I get money I eat three times. The day that I do not have money, I eat in the morning I will eat again in the night. Sometimes too if I eat in the morning and in the afternoon I do not eat in the evening.

Women had to pay a weekly fee for a floor space in a room. Adjao shared, “Yes, we pay at the end of every week on Sundays to the landlord . . . 3 Cedis [US$0.79].” Except for paying for the floor space in a room, other housing-related expenses included paying for the use of toilet and bathroom facilities. Mary shared,

Water, the place is like one of these black tanks that they put water inside and we usually go and fetch. A basin full is 40 pesewas [US$0.40] and bathing is 20 pesewas [US$0.05]. If you are going to toilet you pay 50 pesewas [US$0.13] and going to urinate is also 20 pesewas [US$0.05].

In the village, women who had not migrated rented from a landlord or owned and/or built their own houses. Women saved a percentage of their income to buy building materials to build or expand their houses. Kara shared how self-sufficient women could be:

Yes the money is there. Some of the women are very strong and they work hard to make money. Somebody can harvest as much as 40 plastic containers (buckets) of pepper and sell each for 40 Cedi [approximately US$10.4]. So if you calculate that it adds up to a lot of money. So then she buys the building materials little by little and starts to build. So every year she builds a little.

The women who rent from a landlord usually have only one room without facilities. Amenja, a mother with three children, said,

Please, we are renting this house so we live here with the landlord. . . . We fetch water from the stand pipe . . . we use the public toilet. There are three rooms in the house; one room is ours.

In the village, women also had to fetch water and use a communal toilet, but they did not have to pay for the use of the water or the toilet. The village had water pumps and women had to carry large buckets of water to their houses every day. Adja commented, “As for water we all fetch from the stand pipe. [Interviewer: What about toilet facilities?] We all use the public one.”

Adequacy

Adequacy of housing refers to housing that does not need major repair for human habitation and it meets minimum standards for health and safety (Obeng-Odoom & Amedzro, 2011). The adequacy of housing posed various problems, especially for women who had migrated to Accra. The women had very limited personal space and little to no bathroom and kitchen facilities. Often women could not cook their own food and shared, “We buy all our food.” Akuuka shared that they had to use a communal bathroom: “As for the place of convenience we use the public one in the market.” Adwa talked about the inadequacy of their living arrangements. They lived in public spaces with little privacy:

It is a like public place and they do a lot of nasty things there. The migrants will see a place that they are not supposed to put something there but they still put that thing there. Sometimes they pour water on the room floor and it becomes wet and muddy. The plaster or cement on the room floor is coming off. [Interviewer: Do you have beds or how?] No bed. We spread our clothes and sleep on them.

Women talked about the health effects of living in such crowded housing circumstances. Joy described the danger of being infected with a communicable disease:

There are some illnesses that if you are sent to the hospital you are isolated. Nobody is allowed closer to you except the health professionals. They usually cover such a person. So if someone has that kind of illness in the room, the other room members will definitely be infected.

Women also complained about leaking roofs during the raining season. Ama reflected,

It leaks very much, when it rains we have to wake up and sit until it is over; then we wipe and dry the floor before going back to sleep.

Safety concerns were verbalized several times by women who had migrated. To stay safe, they had to close the door to the room where they slept. Sofi shared,

[Interviewer: Do you leave the doors open?] The boys here are not good, they are all thieves. When we leave the door open they can come in to steal from us. Sometimes they have knives on them. So we always close our doors when sleeping. We never leave it open. They ask us to show where we have hidden our monies and they will take away the little we have earned. So when we lock it they are unable to get in.

Alternatively women living in the village had little to say about the adequacy of their housing.

Suitability

Suitability refers to whether the dwelling has enough bedrooms for the size and composition of the household (Statistics Canada, 2012). The women who had migrated to the city shared rooms with other women. Adwa shared “that [they] we stay, there are 15 of us sleeping there.” The rooms are an average size of 16 square meters. Another woman, Rafiato, added, “We are about six in the room. But some people are more in other rooms. Sometimes about 20 and 30 in one room.”

Women in the village did not only live in such crowded circumstances but also shared that the houses “[are] not big enough.” It was also common for village women to share a room, but more often, it was with family members. Akuuka talked about their family’s accommodation as follows: “The husband and the three children are in one room and the mother-in-law and her three other children are in another room.”

Relationship Between Housing and Health

Women who were living in the village and who had migrated to Accra talked openly about the effects of their housing circumstances on their health. Safina, a migrant woman, said that “it is bad because when someone is sleeping and breathes and has any disease you can easily get it from the person.” Ama added that “it is due to the cold floor where we sleep. It is very cool here. You can sleep and feel pains all over. Even where we sleep can make you get sick.” Women who had migrated often lived in housing structures that were not sufficient. Ama explained,

The rain enters the room through leakage in the roof and some structures even break down if there is a storm. We might even get malaria. I think the malaria is as a result of mosquitoes entering the rooms.

Alternatively, women in the village also experienced public health issues but of a different kind. Afia expanded on this by adding,

It’s the weeds that disturb them. When we first came, it was all over here, and I weeded it. It breeds mosquitoes (insects) and snakes.

Both women living in the village and in the city did not have indoor kitchens. They had to cook on the open fires in small open spaces outside their rooms. Women talked about the health effects as portrayed by Adjo: “If we are cooking and the smoke enters them it can cause diseases but they have no choice so we have to do it.”

Discussion

Our study focused on the intersection between migration, health, and gender and its effects on housing security. Women in our study have decided whether to migrate or not for different reasons. The need to migrate was predominantly influenced by the global social influences that effect how people have to live to survive economically. Self-directed female migration was used as a temporary option to financially support their families in Northern Ghana. In conversations, women shared that they traveled back and forth from Northern Ghana as the need arose for financial support. This temporary migration is called circular migration and is depended on market demands in both the place of origin and the destination (Ozkul & Obeng-Odoom, 2013). They went to Accra to work and sent as much money home as possible. They did not require permanent housing when working in Accra because they wanted to save money and return home as soon as possible. Women were faced with few alternate affordable housing options, making living in informal housing areas a necessity. In Africa, it is not uncommon for large slum areas to develop around the periphery of cities as a result of poor housing markets that do not provide a range of affordable housing alternatives, especially for low-income households. “While such housing is provided at a cost that low-income households can more likely afford, such settlements are rarely a healthy, comfortable, dignified place to live” (United Nations Habitat, 2011, p. vii).

In our study, urban migrant women, compared with women in the village, faced worse housing circumstances. Women who decided to migrate reported various challenges with housing security related to availability, affordability, adequacy, and suitability. Security expressed as personal safety was an immense concern for women who migrated to Accra. Housing circumstances additionally gave rise to various kinds of health concerns. Affordability problems were mentioned; not only were they required to pay for shared space within a room to sleep but also for “amenities,” including toilet and bathroom facilities. They had little to no access to kitchen facilities and therefore could not cook their own meals, resulting in an additional cost to purchase food from street vendors. Food products at informal markets were not necessarily unsafe for human consumption; however, some health risks associated with how food is prepared are underestimated for its long-term effects when consumed regularly. In addition, street vendors selling food are unregulated, and their hygienic practices are often compromised (Roesel & Grace, 2015).

Women who stayed in the village experienced fewer problems with affordability but had to pay for building maintenance of their houses. Some women rented rooms from a landlord, and others rented out a room for extra income. Public water and toilet facilities were available without extra cost. Women residing in the village also had fewer problems with adequacy of housing. Adequate housing is defined as housing that “provide the inhabitants with adequate space, protection from the cold, damp, heat, rain, and other threads to health, structural hazards, and diseases vectors. The physical safety of the inhabitants must be guaranteed as well” (Obeng-Odoom & Amedzro, 2011, p. 127).

Inadequacy of housing was another housing problem experienced by both the women who have migrated for economic reasons and the women who stayed in the village. The meaning of adequacy of housing evolved in two ways from our results. First, there was inadequate supply to meet demand. The second interpretation refers to slum housing. Slum areas threatened social stability and order. Urban youth who were unemployed and participated in gang activities and lived in these slum areas caused a threat to the other inhabitants (Gidding, 2007)—in our case, women who had migrated for economic reasons. Poverty is a major cause of inadequate housing in Ghana. A United Nations Human Settlement program reports that “more than half of the population of Ghana live in poor houses where they have no access to adequate sanitation facilities, water, and warmth to meet their daily physical needs” (United Nations Habitat, 2010, p. 4). Both women who migrated or lived in the village spoke of sharing rooms or their houses with others. Women who migrated to urban areas mentioned that they had to endure overcrowded living conditions. Overcrowding in the village was to a lesser degree a problem. International standards developed by the United Nations’ Principles and Recommendations for Population and Housing Censuses, Revision 2 (United Nations, 2008) stated that “densities of three or more persons per room [is] overcrowded under any circumstance but . . . this level may be raised or lowered for national use” (p. 301). Inadequate shelter and overcrowding are major reasons for the transmission of diseases with epidemic potential for acute respiratory infections, meningitis, typhus, cholera, and scabies to only mention a few. Outbreaks of disease are more common and more severe when the population density is high (World Health Organization [WHO], 2017).

Women talked about the intersection between the adequacy and suitability of housing and health. They referred to the effects of sleeping in overcrowded rooms along with inadequacies in housing structures such as leaking roofs and the resultant exposure to vectors such as mosquitoes. Sickness and diseases were an important determinant of productivity, the primary purpose for these women’s migration. In addition, there is a relationship between poor quality of housing and mental health (Obeng-Odoom, & Amedzro, 2011). Infectious and environmental diseases such as respiratory disorders, diarrhea, and other gastrointestinal sicknesses are more prevalent in populations living in substandard housing that is often found in informal settlements. The health benefit of safe drinking water and warm, clean housing are evident and have been proved to support better curative strategies (Gidding, 2007).

Various studies point to insecurities experienced by women who decide to migrate, such as economic insecurities, social inequalities, gendered forms of domination, physical security during migration, and settling in the new environment. A greater understanding of the ways in which women who are particularly vulnerable related to the migration process is needed to reduce the insecurities and provide women with a safer context (Freedman, 2012). In a similar study, Hofmann (2014) states that women, and particularly mothers, experience more practical constraints than men who decide to migrate for economic reasons.

Housing policies and the associated availability, affordability, adequacy, and suitability of housing are continuously changing and are influenced by socioeconomic changes (Konadu-Agyemang, 2001). It is globally recognized that shelter is one of the basic necessities of life and an indicator for measuring development (Jiboye, 2011). It is axiomatic to state that housing is a basic human right, and having access to quality housing is a dream of all people in both low- and high-income countries. Although the term “affordability” has different meanings in different countries and also different socioeconomic groups, certain basic elements seem to have universal applicability (Roesel & Grace, 2015). The affordability of housing is an issue of interest for all people given the impact on the health of citizens, efficiency, social behavior, productivity, and general well-being (Jiboye, 2011). It is expected that households do not spend more that 28% to 30% of their income on housing-related expenses. The income proportion that a household spends on housing should not affect the family’s ability to afford food, clothing, and other essentials of life. More research is needed on the proportion of income that families spend on housing in different countries, particularly low-income countries and within various regions of any particular country.

Conclusion

Our study highlights the importance of understanding the consequences of migration and subsequent housing needs from a gender perspective. It emphasizes the intersection between migration, health, gender, and housing security. Both women who decided to migrate and those who did not had various challenges with availability, affordability, adequacy, and suitability of housing. Women who migrated tried to save money to support their families in Northern Ghana. Their living arrangements were compromised by a lack of finances to support adequate housing when working in Accra, and their housing situation negatively affected their health and productivity. As the primary purpose of being in Accra was to earn money to support the family in the north, those who fell ill exacerbated their dire situation; their length of stay in Accra was potentially increased when their productivity decreased as a result of poor health. Women who decided to stay in the village had fewer housing problems. They also had more social support than women who migrated.

We found that housing, in particular the availability, affordability, adequacy, and suitability of housing, had a direct influence on the health of women and more profoundly if they had migrated for economic reasons. In addition, we recognize that women who migrated to Accra also faced major safety and security concerns.

The impact of female migration and subsequence inequalities and differences between women who migrate or choose to stay close to their birth places has not been previously studied in this context. We conclude that improved housing and urban services have a major impact on the health of the urban poor and particularly women. Available, affordable, suitable, and adequate housing have the potential to contribute to economic growth, create more jobs, and improve the well-being of, in our case, migrant women and subsequently their families in Northern Ghana who are financially dependent on the income generated by them. Improved housing “play a constructive role in the strengthening and spread of community, civic, and democratic values, which in turn enhance social stability and personal security” (Gidding, 2007, p. i).

Globalization will intensify further migration, and as gender attributes are assigned by sociocultural origin and influences migration choices, we need more research focusing on the intersection of gender and migration (The World Bank, 2016). The integration of gender perspective into development programs and attending to the needs of migration women can contribute to sustainable economic growth. What is needed is the political will of governments to proactively plan to address the increasing needs for housing caused by migration in an increasing global urbanization era.