ABSTRACT
Migration, whether within or between countries, raises important questions about the nature of social transformations accompanying economic liberalization. It invites closer examination of the ways in which social reproduction systems are embroiled in the global restructuring of production. This chapter presents an overview of the literature on women’s international migration and examines how the relationship between globalization and social reproduction has been addressed in the research literature. There is growing attention to the ways in which the demand for paid care workers generally, and migrant workers specifically, is an integral feature of the restructuring of care regimes in Western Europe and North America. The need for migrant health-care workers has arisen from the reduction in investment in training nurses and doctors in Australia, Canada and the United Kingdom, resulting from “neoliberal attempts to reduce the cost of social reproduction”.
