In The Age of Migration, De Hass notes that migration patterns differ across gender. For example, he notes that in cases such as in Moldova, most migrant men travel to Russia and other central Eurasian countries, while Moldovan women tend to travel to Italy to fill the demand for caseworkers (De Hass 129). In fact, it seems that the most well-covered sectors regarding migration tend to be agriculture, industry, or construction. However, I find the women-focused sector of elderly care and caretaking in general extremely fascinating. The Age of Migration also mentions that many women who come from Latin America and Asia have begun to migrate to Southern Europe to fill caretaking positions (De Hass 133). This traditional caretaking role allows people to view these migrants as “tolerated” on a social level. It often seems to me that the majority of women who migrate do so with or after their husbands migrate and are included as a part of the family settlement.
While De Hass has brought up certain issues pertaining to female migrant workers, I thought it would be interesting to learn more about this subject. According to Elizabeth King, there is an increasing number of female migrants from Central Asian in Russia, but they are denied a plethora of health resources, specifically those for female reproductive, sexual, and prenatal health (King). This is often a problem, as male-dominated groups such as migrants often cause women’s needs to be overlooked, especially needs that are women-specific.
In the article on Chechen and Ingush deportees in Kazakhstan, there is a vivid description of female migrants’ experiences who were forcibly moved from their homes and sent to Kazakhstan by train. The journey lasted 18 days, and there were no bathrooms, so the men relieved themselves in front of the women. However, given the traditional values, the women were uncomfortable relieving themselves in front of the men, causing many of the women to die from ruptured bladders (403). This ordeal not only covers the terrible hardship of transporting migrants but also the ignorance of the soviet union to provide for the traditional and unique gender differences between men and women. Firstly, it is significantly easier for men to relieve themselves without a bathroom than women, so there should have been some bathrooms provided. Secondly, women have stricter societal rules to follow, and relieving themselves in front of men would make them feel shameful and possibly damage their reputation as a disgraceful woman. Women and men should have been separated for sake of safety and to protect the traditional values of the deportees. Just like the lack of female health support, the transportation process of female migrants has also been disregarded completely.
An interesting thing to note is that De Hass stresses the importance of the post-world war order and the effects it had on migration. In Europe, increased access to education have increased for both men and women, leading to a demand for unskilled labor. However, while women native to Europe may be more likely to have broken free from an archetype in which they no longer need to be in the home or act as caretakers (obviously, this is still true but not as prevalent as before), these caretaking roles are now freeing educated and European women but are trapping being foreign-born women into that limited work cycle. It’s important to understand that while the “modern women” concept is, to an extent, true, the workforce is just replacing educated western European women with central Asian migrant women. There should be more opportunities and sectors open for migrant women rather than just continuing to give them caretaking jobs.
Bibliography
Castles, Stephen, et al. The Age of Migration International Population Movements in the Modern World. Guilford Press, 2014.
King, E.J., Dudina, V.I. The Health Needs of Female Labor Migrants from Central Asia in Russia. J Immigrant Minority Health 21, 1406–1415 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10903-019-00889-3Pohl, Michaela. “‘It Cannot Be That Our Graves Will Be Here’: The Survival of Chechen and Ingush Deportees in Kazakhstan, 1944-1957.” Journal of Genocide Research, vol. 4, no. 3, 2002, pp. 401–430., doi:10.1080/14623520220151989.
Hi Veronica, such an interesting post! I am interested in how Central Asian women are denied health resources in Russia. You mention that they are specifically denied reproductive healthcare – are they denied other types of healthcare, or is it predominately reproductive healthcare? I’ll definitely take a look at the resource you cite on this, but I’m wondering if there is possibly less information available for migrant women (maybe in their native languages) to find these resources, or if they’re denied the care outright. Thanks for the thought provoking post!
This is a really interesting line of questioning, Veronica. Women migrants perform care work at really high rates in countries around the world, from domestic labor like child and elder care through to the professional kind of work, as nurses in hospitals and elder-care facilities. I’ve done a study with a colleague about Central Asian women who migrate alone to Turkey to fill these kinds of roles, and that’s a widespread phenomenon in care work: women migrating alone, not in families.
Good find! the article on Central Asian migrant women trying to meet their health care needs in Russia. I trust you went through the library’s website and were able to open that article without hitting the paywall?