Structural Conditions and Agency in Migrant Decision-Making: A Case of Domestic and Construction Workers from Java, Indonesia. Migrating out of Poverty RPC Working Paper No. 25
Abstract
New Migrating out of Poverty research examines the factors that lead migrants from rural Indonesia into domestic and construction work. The authors find that the process of deciding whether to migrate and who should migrate in the household is complicated by the gendered migration regimes, gender roles and responsibilities within the household as well as intergenerational family obligations. As a result some households reshuffle household roles and responsibilities to allow women to migrate, while men stay behind to take care of the household. In other households no one migrates because men are unable to afford the costs, while women are constrained by their household responsibilities. Other households make conscious decisions that both male and female members will work only within Indonesia, or reject migration in favour of spending more time with their family members.
Citation
Yen, K.C.; Platt, M.; Yeoh, B.S.A.; Lam, T. Structural Conditions and Agency in Migrant Decision-Making: A Case of Domestic and Construction Workers from Java, Indonesia. Migrating out of Poverty RPC Working Paper No. 25. Migrating out of Poverty Consortium, University of Sussex, Brighton, UK (2015) 32 pp.
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