Introduction
Migration is the movement of people from one place to another place with an aim of establishing a permanent location where they can settle. It usually occurs where people move from one country to another. It can occur either voluntarily of may be involuntary. Migration dates backs to the early days of human life.
There are different scales under which human migration can occur. These include global level, country levels, and one which occurs within the country. It can also occur on the basis of the movement from the rural to urban areas. This happens, in most cases, when people move to urban centers in search for employment opportunities.
In this research, we attempt to find out whether women have to lose or gain from the process of migration. In achieving this objective, the research tries to compare the gains that women may get from migration to those of men. Besides, the research attempts to achieve the same objective based on the causes of migration, ease of women’s migration, their social and economic statuses.
Migration, Causes and its effects on women
There are many reasons that make people migrate. These reasons can be categorized into push and pull reasons. One of the major causes of migration is poverty. Men have control of property more than women. This is one crucial difference between women and men migration.
Moving from one country to another may help in alleviating poverty, improving education levels and health status of the migrants. All these problems mostly affect women. This means that, women will benefit from migration if the movement will be accompanied by these gains.
Shortage of food and existence war in the country of origin is the other causes of migration. People move from one place to another to look for food and also for safety. Natural calamities like floods and earthquake make people migrate from one place to another. Search for favorable climatic or weather conditions, and secure food supply cause people to migrate. Migration of women is more difficult compared to that of men.
A Man is more mobile than a woman because a woman mostly has to move with her children. Men easily move away from their homes, mostly to look for employment so that they can support their families. Women migration is complex because of the existence of children. Mostly they migrate with their children, and this increases the number of low income earners in the host country.
When Women migrate, they mostly join the low income earners group in the host country. In many instances, immigrants earn low income. Economically, women suffer most when they migrate from their home countries. This happens mostly when women migrate to look for jobs or because of insecurity in their home countries. They may get exposed to sexual or criminal exploitation especially if they fail to get jobs in the host countries.
Women end up engaging in illegal and immoral businesses so that they can earn a living. These businesses may include commercial sex activities or slavery. This is not the same case with men because they can engage in different income earning jobs that women cannot handle.
However, women stand to benefit socially when they migrate to escape from exploitative marriages. They also run away from many gender-based problems like abusive and violent husbands, and gender inequality in their home countries.
Conclusion
In short, comparing men to women, men stand to gain more than women during migration. However, on one side, women stand to benefit socially by escaping from their disappointing marriages. On the other side, there are more dangers they get exposed to when they migrate. Some of these include sexual exploitation and exploitative domestic works. Men are economically and socially mobile, hence not exposed to such risks. This makes them benefit more from migration than men.