ABSTRACT
This chapter focuses on women and how competing theoretical approaches view women and decision-making processes concerning migration. It examines some of the important empirical contributions to the study of migration and African, Asian, and Latin American women. The chapter summarizes the demographic composition of particular migrations and paying particular attention to how migration affects women's participation in the labor market and gender inequality within the family and society. Migration, both domestic and international, is an integral part of structural transformations occurring in developing societies, and women are key players in this movement. Macrostructural approaches to the study of migration developed in opposition to the neoclassical model and redirected the research focus to the structural and historical factors that make labor migration possible. Achieving a truly gendered understanding of Third World women and migration will require weaving conceptual tapestries in which the multiple strands of migrant women's voices remain clear.
