ABSTRACT
This chapter aims to assess some of the research findings on rural women and migration and consider the implications, both in research and in development policy, of failing to include the category of gender in the analysis of migration. It focuses on rural-urban migration because, although a variety of migratory patterns can be established, the most significant numerical flow in Latin America is from rural to urban areas. The chapter provides an overview of early studies on internal, largely permanent migration in Latin America. During the late 1960s and early 1970s, research on women and migration emerged in the context of the growing visibility of urban problems. Such themes as "urbanization without industrialization," "hypertertiarization," and the issues of poverty, integration, and marginality among migrants were of primary importance to researchers of urbanization in Latin America. During the 1970s other theoretical and conceptual approaches emerged that presented strong criticisms of earlier models concerned with individual motivations and preferences.
