Introduction

While migrant women remained absent in the literature on migration (apart from as dependants of men) until three decades ago, a significant amount of work on the issue has emerged since. While this paper is concerned specifically with the British context (though not being exclusively about British society) it is worth noting that, national specificities aside, debates are not commonly contained by national boundaries, but cut across them.

We begin by looking at feminist critiques of approaches to migration and the gendering of migration theory. We then look at a number of different areas of debate, including gender and ethnic and national boundaries; gender, ethnicity, class and the notion of intersectionality; and globalisation and transnationalisms. The final section is devoted to literature and debates concerned particularly with the position and experience of migrant women in the labour market. The sectors included are care work, domestic work, sex work, the service sector, the agri-food sector and work within the so-called ethnic enclave. We also consider the importance of attending to a range of labour market positions filled by female migrants generally, and in reproductive work specifically.

Feminist critiques of migration theory

The migration of women involves a range of different movements: movements of space across national or other borders and the relations between these spaces, but also movements in terms of a range of social locations, which include those of the family, networks and class positions, as well as potential identity shifts, often discussed through the use of notions of diaspora, marginalised or hybrid identities (Anthias 1998b).