ABSTRACT
This chapter uses data from the 2016 edition of Kerala’s well-established migration surveys to explore the effect of male migration on three aspects of women’s welfare, that is, decision-making freedom, mobility and justifying domestic violence. We distinguish between wives of current migrants, wives of return migrants and wives of non-migrants. Based on a sample of more than 2,000 women, we find that emigrant status, as compared to non-migrant status, is associated with a 67 percentage point increase in the probability that wives make decisions entirely on their own. In contrast, there is no difference in decision-making freedom for wives of returnees as compared to wives of non-migrants. The increase in decision-making freedom is tempered by a 29 percentage point decline in the mobility of wives of emigrants as compared to wives of non-migrants. This effect is even larger for wives of returnees – a 47 percentage point decline. Wives of migrants and of returnees are also more likely to justify the use of physical violence in certain circumstances. The patterns documented in the chapter are consistent with the idea that the decision-making freedom experienced by wives of migrants is temporary and that the return of husbands is likely to be accompanied by attempts to re-establish pre-migration gender norms.
