ABSTRACT
This chapter seeks to develop some of the issues involved in women’s migrations and their position in receiving labour markets. It analyses the new context of international migration and its impact on women’s migration, with particular attention paid to France and Italy. The chapter discusses integration policies and problems, particularly at local level, taking these two countries as examples. Women have always played an important part in the history of international migratory movements, shaping the composition of populations in countries and continents. Internationally, there is a growing demand for traditional female jobs such as maids, nurses and entertainers. Immigrant women have traditionally been recruited for domestic work. The sex industry is flourishing all over the world and is recruiting more and more immigrant women from Asia, Africa, eastern Europe and Latin America. European labour markets are of course racialized and gendered, and labour market discrimination concerns all women. Women are mainly employed in the domestic sector, as live-in domestic helpers.
