COVID-19 AND WOMEN MIGRANT WORKERS

The COVID-19 pandemic has dramatically altered societies and labour markets. In a matter of weeks, severe constraints on mobility were imposed via border and business closures, quarantines and movement restrictions.

The pandemic and subsequent movement restrictions have acutely exposed
the front-line nature of much of the work carried out by migrant workers, by laying bare the ways in which economic, social and structural inequalities impact upon some groups of workers and migrants more than others.

Gender is one such distinguishing factor. Migrating overseas for work is driven by a number of factors. Many men and women migrate in order to seek higher incomes and better opportunities for themselves and their families. Women’s labour migration is driven by specific factors in countries of origin and destination that are often gender related. One set of factors relates to gender inequalities and gender-based discrimination, which may prevent women from accessing the same economic opportunities as men both at home and overseas, or from exercising the same level of freedom of mobility as men. In addition, there are structural factors in countries of origin such as insufficient social safety nets, the privatization of health care and
education, and levels of poverty that drive women’s migration in light of men’s under- or unemployment or the absence of an income provider. In destination countries, the outsourcing of care work has been one of the key drivers of women’s in-migration.

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