ABSTRACT
The male dominated migration flows from Kerala stand in contrast to the experiences of countries in South East Asia and Sri Lanka, raising questions of policy at the macrolevel and patriarchal dynamics at the household level. This chapter explains the political economy of less skilled women's migration and analyses the responses of emigrant women to the conditions in which they decided to take up overseas employment including the decision-making process. It explains the migration of less skilled women from India in the context of women's migration from Asia. The chapter argues that the marginality of emigrant domestic workers in Kerala as breadwinners narrows the material base from which they are drawn and renders their agency suspect but women engender the conditions to migrate through complex negotiation of family patriarchy. It provides an overview of the material contexts that shape less skilled women's migration from Kerala.
