Introduction: The Invisibility of Women in Scholarship on International Migration

Abstract

Although women migrate across international boundaries at roughly the same rate as men, a great deal of international migration scholarship has been based on the assumption that international migrants largely consist of male workers. According to this traditional assumption, women migrate only to join their husbands abroad, and economic factors are the underlying impetus for most migration flows. While few in number, existing studies of women and international migration challenge this simple view. These studies suggest that women migrate for a variety of complex reasons and that, in terms of migrants' adaptions to host societies, women experience migration in unique ways (Simon and Brettell, 1986; Phizacklea, 1983).