ABSTRACT
The chapter discusses patterns of mobility in the colonial period as a context to identify new patterns of women’s migration today. The case study is that of women migrants in domestic work. The chapter deals with three kinds of migration in the colonial period: (a) family migration, (b) single male migration, and (c) single female migration. Even though family migration was considered the typical form of migration, the literature is dominated by the specificities of single male migration, which was most characteristic of rural–urban migration and of the urban and industrial workforce. The pattern of single female migration noted in the colonial period was quite different. These women were not only migrating singly but were also mostly “single women”. They were dis-embedded from the rural family in the process of migration. It is argued that they were more truly proletarianised in the sense that they lost access to rural resources, which were contingent upon familial role fulfilment. The chapter describes new contemporary patterns of women’s migration. The real surprise has been a form of single women’s migration analogous to single male migration of the colonial period.
