Marriage-related migration rises in women
Marriage-related migration rises in women
New Delhi: The share of women migrating for “marriage-related” reasons has increased significantly over the past 15 years, even as their participation in the labour force--particularly in rural areas--has dropped, according to a new study.
The report, Gender and Migration: Negotiating Rights, A Women’s Movement Perspective, was released on Tuesday by Delhi-based Centre for Women’s Development Studies. The result of a two-year-long field research spanning 20 states and 35 districts, it’s one of the few published studies focused on women’s migration patterns.
“Census and NSSO (National Sample Survey Office) data do not sufficiently capture women’s migration and the different aspects,” said Indira Mazumdar, one of the authors of the report.
“This is a paradox, an enormous increase in migration rates, and falling work participation,” said Mazumdar, adding that the data reflects changing social trends due to the acute agrarian crisis and a growing lack of employment opportunities overall.
The rise in women’s marriage-related migration can also be attributed in part to changing economic and social patterns in rural areas, the study said. This includes growing tendencies toward finding marriageable partners outside the village, a shift in what is considered valuable in marriageable partners, and an almost universal rise of the importance of dowry, according to Mazumdar.
“The declining value of work women contribute to agriculture means that the need for income from other occupations becomes more important,” said Mazumdar. “In this situation women are seen as more of a burden, so dowry has ratcheted up.”
There could also be a tendency to classify all migration of women who happen to be married as “marriage-related migration,” concealing other motivations underlying their movement, said Amitabh Kundu, professor of economics at Jawaharlal Nehru University.
“A big problem of migration data is one of classification,” he said.
malia.p@livemint.com
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First Published:6 Mar 2012, 10:26 PM IST
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