Slides from a lecture on gender, migration and recession by Ursula Barry, Women's Studies, UCD School of Social Justice, 18 November 2013. Lecture given as part of Gender and the Economy module.

1. Gender, Migration and Recession

2. Gender, Migration and Recession
• What does recession look like from a gender
standpoint ?
• What does a gender informed picture of
economic crisis look like ?
• What are the consequences of a gender-blind
approach to economic policy ?

3. Gender, Migration & Recession
Young people are suffering disproportionately as the economic crisis in
Ireland persists.
One of the consequences of the severe economic recession has been a
dramatic rise in unemployment and emigration, particularly
affecting young people.
Latest unemployment data show Ireland at a rate of over 13.6% (over
400,000 on Live Register) the second highest level (after Spain)
across the EU28. The rate has dropped from 14.7% in 2012.
One in three young people in Ireland are unemployed, a rate that has
quadrupled over the last five years.

4. Gender, Migration, Labour Market & Recession
Irish Context
• Jobs in this recession have been lost across the economy particularly high rate of job loss in male dominated
construction sector from 2007-2010.
• 2010-13 has seen job losses spread to services sector –
mainly private but also public.
• Long-term unemployment (over one year) now at 56% of
those on register.
• Young people are particularly badly affected by high
unemployment levels leading to re-establishment of
emigration as a reality of Irish society primarily affecting
20-30 year olds.

5. Gender, Migration, Labour Market & Recession
Irish Context
•
Much of the job growth over the decade 1998-2008 had been in the service
sector, where women's jobs predominate and construction, where men’s jobs
predominate.
•
Analysis of official statistics shows that in recent months job losses in sectors
where men predominate such as construction and manufacturing are now
being balanced by job losses in retail, hospitality and personal services where
more women than men work.
• But while women are now more likely to be in paid work, they remain
more likely than men to be in low-paid jobs. This gap is narrowing as more
men take up involuntary part-time work. Those who work part-time are
the most likely to be in low-paid employment.
• Young people, migrants and women workers – concentrated in low paid
service work – have been particularly affected by reductions in part-time
hours during the downturn.

6. Gender, Migration & Recession
There are many reasons why gender is a crucial framework of analysis in relation to the recession in this
country. For example, from the standpoint of men:
Men’s unemployment rate is significantly higher than women’s. One of the main reasons for this has been the
crash in the construction industry which had been a major employer of male labour.
While the rate of unemployment level is high among both young women and young men, it is particularly high
among young men. Latest figures show that 31% of young men and 25% of young women aged 15 to 24
are currently unemployed - the rise in these rates has been dramatic over the last few years.
Young men who often left school early to take up job opportunities in construction now find themselves
unemployed and without even basic second level qualifications.
Long-term unemployment is a rising - majority are men - and often with skills that are unlikely to significantly
increase in demand.
Suicides rates are extremely high – majority are young men – recession has exacerbated already unacceptably
high levels. Suicide is the leading cause of death in men aged 15-34 years in Ireland, surpassing the
number of deaths from road traffic accidents. Rates of youth suicides in Ireland are now the 4th highest in
Europe. 60% of suicides among young people are young men. There were 486 deaths by suicide registered
in 2010 (386 were male, 100 were female). Men between 35-44 were the most vulnerable to suicide, with
109 men in this age group taking their own lives (pisa@dcu.ie).

7. Gender, Migration & Recession
Irish Context
There are many reasons why gender is a crucial framework of analysis in relation to the recession in
this country. For example, from the standpoint of women:
• More households depend solely or primarily on a woman's wage today. A
quarter of households with children are headed by lone parents, 87% of
whom are women.
• Women make up the majority of those living in poverty – mainly older
women and lone parents.
• Women have different experiences of unemployment to men. Women tend
to move between employment, unemployment, working in the home (defined
as ‘inactive’), casual work, part-time working and the hidden economy.
• Unemployed women are less likely to qualify for Jobseekers Allowance - which
may exacerbate their financial difficulties - this relates to the structure of the
benefit system itself i.e. condition of eligibility that a person is available and
seeking full-time employment

8. Gender, Migration & Recession
Irish Context
Other reasons why gender is a crucial framework of analysis in relation to the recession
in this country.
•
Women carry out the majority of child and elder care responsibilities – most of
which is unpaid. Unequal sharing of unpaid work continues to be a significant barrier
to gender equality.
•
Women often chosen particular part-time or flexible employment opportunities as a
means to balance paid and unpaid work. This restricts job possibilities as only certain
employment opportunities will be suitable, and may be contingent upon the
accessibility of affordable childcare or flexible work arrangements.
•
Discrimination will continue to affect women striving to retain employment or
seeking to move back into work - particularly women who are pregnant, after
childbirth or who already have caring responsibilities. The Equality Authority confirms
that the largest proportion of gender discrimination cases it is dealing with over the
last three years concern pregnancy and maternity entitlements.

9. Gender, Migration & Recession
Irish Context
Other reasons why gender is a crucial framework of analysis in relation to the
recession in this country.
•
Many women face the task of managing household income and
indebtedness :
–
–
–
–
as lone parents on welfare or in low paid jobs;
as the person responsible for household expenditure in low income households;
as the person responsible for the costs of care and
as the person responsible for the cost of debt repayments.
•
Women and children are vulnerable to particular exploitation in hidden
economy and in sex industry. A recent report has highlighted children in
State care being put in hostels and used by the prostitution industry.
•
Women are now increasingly in situations where they are compensating for
cut-backs in public and community services and in which critical community
development programmes have been reduced or cut completely.

10. Emigration and Immigration to and from Ireland among women (w) and men (m)
2005
2006
2007
•
•
•
2011
2012
2013
W
M
Immigration
37,100
47,500
47,500
60,300
71,100
80,000
59,500
53,900
36,800
36,800
21,400
27,200
20,400
26,000
27,800
27,700
W
M
Emigration
14,600 15,400
17,300 18,700
20,600 25,700
19,600 29,600
30,100 41,900
28,700
38,800
25,000
28,200
40,600
41,900
38,200
44,000
W
M
Net migration
32,600
32,100
30,200
41,600
50,400
54,300
39,900
24,400
6,700
-5,100
-7,200
-11,500
48,900
44,900
-20,500
-15,800
-10,500
-16.400
-23,900
-16.700
Total Emigration for 2013 was 89,000; 2012 was 87,100; 2011 was 80,600
Total Net Migration for 2013 was -33,100; 2012 was -34,400; 2011 was -27,400.
Central Statistics Office: Migration and Population Estimates April 2013

11. Ireland: Migrants by nationality and number, 2010
Irish
U.K.
Rest of EU 15
EU 12
Emigrants
Women
11,900
0,900
3,700
5,600
Men
15,000
1,600
4,100
13,500
Immigrants
Women
6,400
1,100
2,400
2,800
Men
6,900
1,400
2,000
3,000
Rest of World
2,700
5,400
2,900
2,000
Total
24,900
40,400
15,500
15,300
Source : Central Statistics Office Population and Migration Estimates Sept. 2010
Note : 40% of women and 37% of men emigrants are Irish. 41% of women and 45% of men
immigrants are Irish.
Note : Earlier figures show that between 2008 and 2010 women accounted for the (small) majority
of migrants into Ireland and men the majority of emigrants.

12. Ireland: Migrants by nationality and number, 2013
Irish
U.K.
Rest of EU 15
EU 12
Emigrants
Women
23,800
1,900
7,200
7,000
Rest of World
8,500
Total
Men
27,100
2,000
2,600
7,000
4,100
44,000
Immigrants
Women
6,300
2,500
4,700
5,600
6,200
44,900
Men
9,300
2,400
2,700
5,300
8,600
27,700
28,200
57% of emigrants in 2013 were Irish nationals; 47% under 24 years and 91% under 44 years.
54% of women and 60% of men emigrants were Irish. 23% of women and 33% of men immigrants were Irish.
Source : Central Statistics Office Population and Migration Estimates Sept. 2012 Preliminary 2013.
Note : Earlier figures show that in most years since 2008 women have accounted for the majority of migrants into Ireland
and men the majority of emigrants. This gender gap has narrowed considerably to be almost insignificant.

13. Ireland: Patterns of Migration
Ireland during the period of the ‘celtic tiger’ was a country of high levels of net in-migration. The
last two years has seen a reversal of this trend and a return to the historical pattern of
emigration.
•High levels of inmigration took place during the decade to 2007.
•As the recession deepened from 2008 Ireland reverted to a country of high emigration
•60% of emigrants in 2010 compared to 45% of emigrants in 2013 were made up of those who
had recently arrived in Ireland (mainly from Eastern Europe)
•By 2013, 57% of emigrants were Irish nationals (compared to 41% in 2010) made up of mainly,
young indigenous Irish women and men (in equal numbers).
•It is also interesting to note that although numbers fell during the first phase of the crisis they
have increased during the second phase - there continues to be a significant number migrating
into Ireland (57,300 in 2009; 30,800 in 2010 and 55,900 in 2013).
(CSO: Population and Migration Estimates 2010 and 2013)

14. Global Context
• Huge increase in migration to levels never before
recorded
• Movements from East to West and Third World to
First World
• Deepening global inequality
• Collapse of regional economies in East and Third
World
• Areas of recurrent and devastating conflict
• Impact of immigration policies and practices
• Financial crisis and economic recession

15. Feminisation of Migration - Global Context
Women and children are the majority of migrants in the global
economy. Since 2008 the proportion of women among migrants
in the EU has increased very significantly because of a number of
factors including:
•
•
•
•
•
•
Level of poverty and crisis in countries of origin
Growth in number of women-headed households
Growing level of emigration among young women and men
Gender-specific demand for certain kinds of labour
Demands of growing global sex industry
Employment in hidden unregulated economy

16. Global Women
Rise in new forms of, mainly female, domestic service
• Increase in proportion of First World Women in paid
employment
• For some Majority World women this can mean access to
independent income and chance to improve material lives of
children
• For others, their illegal status makes them vulnerable to
super-exploitation in terms of pay, hours worked, mobility and
sexual exploitation
• For many it means separation from their families, children
and homes
• Economic role of domestic service involves low-status, low
paid, unprotected, often hidden, cast-off roles of middle and
higher income women.

17. Global Women
Barbara Ehrenreich and Arlie Russell Hochschild make the
point in 'Global Women' :
"..affluent career women increasingly earn their status not
through leisure, as they might have a century ago, but by
apparently 'doing it all' - producing a full-time career,
thriving children, a contented spouse, and a well-managed
household. In order to preserve this illusion, domestic
workers and nannies make the house hotel-room perfect,
feed and bathe the children, cook and clean up - and then
magically fade from site. “
• They make the contrast between a past in which domestic
servants were 'decked out' in white uniforms and caps and
displayed as a statement of status and the contemporary
pattern of hidden and invisible domestic service.

18. Global Women
• This pattern of female migration reflects what could be called a
worldwide gender revolution……
• While the European or American woman commutes to work on average
twenty-eight minutes a day, many nannies from the Philippines, Sri
Lanka, and India cross the globe to get to their jobs. Some female
migrants from the Third World do find something like ‘liberation’ or at
least the chance to become independent breadwinners and to improve
their children’s material lives. Others, less fortunate migrant women end
up in the control of criminal employers – their passports stolen, their
mobility blocked, forced to work without pay in brothels or to provide
sex along with cleaning and child-care services in affluent homes. But
even in more typical cases, where benign employers pay wages on time,
Third World migrant women achieve success only by assuming the castoff domestic roles of middle- and high- income women in the First World
– roles that have previously been rejected, of course, by men. And their
‘commute’ entails a cost we have yet to fully comprehend. ”
Barbara Ehrenreich and Arlie Russell Hochschild Introduction to ‘Global Women’.

19. Global Women
• Solutions for rich countries create problems for poor
countries.
• Assumption that the care leaving Majority World countries
is surplus care ?
• Most receiving countries have yet to recognise the
contributions of their migrant care workers. In fact, there is
a strong tendency at individual, family and societal levels to
keep migrant care invisible and hidden.
• Immigration policies are specifically designed to limit the
possibilities for reuniting families.

20. Global Women
• The growing crisis of care in the US and Western economies is
reflected in an increase in the demand for care as supply dwindles.
Some Majority World countries have become key sources of new
supply :
Example of the Philippines :
• Domestic service migration has resulted in huge social changes
• Two-thirds of Filipino migrant workers are women
• Majority are in domestic service
• Many Filipino children grow up in divided families (no definite
data)
• 34-54% of Filipino population is sustained by remittances from
migrant workers
• Crisis and conflict within dominant ideologies
• Future of extended family system ?
• Trend towards younger age (child free) migration ?

21. Global Women
“Local gender ideology remains a few steps behind the economic
reality, which has produced numerous female-headed,
transnational households. Consequently a far greater degree of
anxiety attends the quality of family life for the dependents of
migrant mothers than for those of migrant fathers. The
dominant gender ideology, after all, holds that a woman’s
rightful place is in the home, and the households of migrant
mothers present a challenge to this view. In response,
government officials and journalists denounce migrating
mothers, claiming that they have caused the Filipino family to
deteriorate, children to be abandoned, and a crisis of care to
take root in the Philippines.”
Rhacel Salazar Parrenas ‘The Care Crisis in the Philippines’ in
Global Women.

22. Care and value
Care is not socially or economically valued
and therefore the burden of caregiving falls
upon those who have less of a choice and
less decision-making power (resulting from
a lack of alternatives, resources and
bargaining power). Here lies the root of the
segmentation by sex, ethnicity and
immigration status seen in this type of work.
( UN Amaia Orozco Global Care Chains )

23. The link between care, inequality and exclusion
•The long-standing connection between care, social inequality and exclusion
from citizenship, which is taking on new and serious global dimensions today,
needs to be urgently recognized and addressed.
• This link is an integral part of care regimes and while it has been
systematically tied to gender and socio-economic inequalities in the past, it is
today further associated with immigration status.
• The absense of a sense of social responsibility toward care, coupled with the
relegation of care to households (and subsequently to women), the possibility
of receiving care itself serves as an indicator and vector of social inequality.
• An economistic perspective cannot be used to understand care: the market
provision of care fails to follow the simple logic of supply and demand and
money is not the only aspect that must be examined. The availability of social
networks is a key factor.
(UN Global Care Chains Amaia Orozco)

24. The absence of debate:
Care regimes are formed on the basis of exclusion and inequality, on
the sidelines of public debate.
• Care is part of the hidden development agenda given its role in the
private domestic arena.
• A democratic debate needs to be urgently initiated: who should provide
care, who should receive care, how, where, in exchange for what are all
topics that need to be discussed.
These debates cannot be held with only the voices of unions and
employers. (UN Global Care Chains Amaia Orozco)

25. Migration and care
People migrate to support their trans-national families; the
socio-economic systems of richer countries are now highly
dependent on the work and contribution of migrants; and, in
addition, migrants are made responsible for the development
of their communities of origin.
A rights-based approach to development demands recognition
of those who play a leading role in the migration-development
question; in that they are the persons who shape, but also
make decisions about it and benefit from it. (UN Crossing
Borders 2)

26. Global care chains
Global care chains are the result of deficiencies in the
provision of care (of children, the elderly, dependent persons,
etc.) in developed countries, caused by women’s entry into the
paid labour market and men’s continued scarce participation in
care-related tasks.
This reality has given rise to a delegation of reproductive
labour and its various tasks along cross-border chains of
women.
Added to this are other demographic (population ageing),
social (changes in women’s individual expectations or the
transformation of household structures), and political (absence
of public care services) factors that generate a complex web of
demands and supplies, in which migrant women play a
fundamental role. (UN Crossing Borders 2)

27. Global Women
This pattern of female migration reflects a worldwide gender transformation
throwing up new class and new gender divisions.
“While the European or American woman commutes to work on average twentyeight minutes a day, many nannies from the Philippines, Sri Lanka, and India
cross the globe to get to their jobs. Some female migrants from the Third World
do find something like ‘liberation’ or at least the chance to become
independent breadwinners and to improve their children’s material lives.
Others, less fortunate migrant women end up in the control of criminal employers
– their passports stolen, their mobility blocked, forced to work without pay in
brothels or to provide sex along with cleaning and child-care services in affluent
homes.
But even in more typical cases, where benign employers pay wages on time, Third
World migrant women achieve success only by assuming the cast-off domestic
roles of middle- and high- income women in the First World – roles that have
previously been rejected, of course, by men. And their ‘commute’ entails a cost
we have yet to fully comprehend. ”
Barbara Ehrenreich and Arlie Russell Hochschild Introduction to ‘Global Women’.

28. Co-development
Co-development arises as an attempt to identify policy
and programmatic solutions that will allow countries of
origin to access benefits beyond the macroeconomic
stability represented by remittances, converting what
could be the negative economic and social
consequences of migration into opportunities for
development.
The idea of “common interests” between origin and
destination countries in terms of the active recruitment by
developed countries of health personnel from developing
countries, which supposes significant consequences for
the women of these countries as the recruitment is
influenced by gender considerations. Economic and
social policies - as well as immigration policies - based
on recognition of interests and also the
responsibilities (investment in countries of origin).

29. New right to care
In the longest-standing welfare states,
the three classic pillars (health,
education and social protection) are
being complemented by a “fourth
pillar” that recognizes the right to
receive care in situations of
dependency.

30. Articulating care rights (UN Global Care Chains Amaia Orozco)
Breaking the vicious cycle between care, inequality and exclusion
calls for care rights to be introduced in a way that will constitute a
core component of the development process and the way society
recognizes its citizens and the rights they enjoy.
This universal right has yet to be created and is multifaceted.
It includes:
• the right to receive needed care in different circumstances and at
different points in one’s life
• the right to choose whether or not one wants to provide care,
combining a right to provide care in decent conditions with a right to
not provide care
• the right to dignified working conditions in the care sector

31. Immigration Policies
Restrictive immigration policies 2007-13 – implications :
► Green cards linked to salaries of €60,000+ and specific
occupations with recognised shortages and salaries of
€30,000-60,000.
► No work permits to be issued for jobs with a salary of under
€30,000.
► Spouses and dependents of work permit holders not
permitted to work (unless have separate work permits).
► Asylum seekers housed in completely unacceptable crowded
conditions with no right to work and allocated under direct
provision system only €19 per adult per week.
► Serious issues of vulnerability of migrant and asylum seeking
women and children to sex exploitation in prostituted in the
industry.

32. Gender, Migration, & Recession
Discriminatory immigration policies ?
•
Restrictions on social welfare rights and entitlements directed at migrant workers. Habitual
Residency Clause linked to welfare restrictions and access to housing.
•
Change in Irish citizenship law has a direct impact on family unit and consequently primary
carer.
•
Separation of the right to reside and the right to work can be seen to discriminate against
women who are more likely to be in a ‘dependent’ status.
•
Serious problem with lack of recognition of qualifications and skills from countries of origin –
some changes in EU regulations but majority world or third world countries continue to face
discriminatory practices.
•
Increased emphasis on ‘qualified’ migrant workers constructed in a way that does not include
many jobs.
Note : European Court of Justice, Zumbrano judgement March 9 th 2011.