Drawing upon studies of subnational (internal) family migration, in this paper we link international family migration to differential labour-market participation in Great Britain. We extend Kofman's fourfold categorisation of international family migration processes to develop a typology of scenarios that acknowledge the important role of the family. We match scenarios to different out-comes using a subsample of partnered migrants from the Sample of Anonymised Records (SAR) of the 1991 Census. In line with subnational family migration literature, descriptive analyses of the SAR point to a ‘gender gap’ between the labour-market participation of partnered men and partnered women moving into Great Britain between 1990–1991, with males twice as likely to be attached to the labour force compared with women. We contribute to debates on changing family organisation and employment returns to international migration by arguing that the magnitude of this gender gap varies across migration scenario and family structure. In this paper we stress the need for more interchange between international and subnational family-migration scholarship, and provide valuable entrees for analyses of the forthcoming microdata of the 2001 Census.
Get full access to this article
View all access options for this article.
References
1.
AckersL, 1998Shifting Spaces: Women, Citizenship, and Migration within the European Union (Policy Press, Bristol)
2.
AckersL, 2004, “Citizenship, migration and the valuation of care in the European Union”Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies30373–396
3.
BaileyAJBoylePJ, 2004, “Untying and retying family migration in the New Europe”Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies30229–242
4.
BaileyAJCookeTJ, 1998, “Family migration and employment: the importance of migration history and gender”International Regional Science Review2199–118
5.
BaileyAJBlakeMKCookeTJ, 2004, “Migration, care, and the linked lives of dual-earner households”Environment and Planning A361617–1632
6.
BarbaraA, 1994, “Mixed marriages: some key questions”International Migration32571–584
7.
BeaverstockJV, 2002, “Transnational elites in global cities: British expatriates in Singapore's financial district”Geoforum33525–538
8.
BeaverstockJVBoardwellJT, 2000, “Negotiating globalization, transnational corporations and global city financial centres in transient migrant studies”Applied Geography20277–304
9.
BlackabyDHLeslieDGMurphyPDO'LearyNC, 2002, “White/ethnic minority earnings and employment differentials in Britain: evidence from the LFS”Oxford Economic Papers54270–297
10.
BonneyNMcCleeryAForsterE, 1999, “Migration, marriage and the life course: commitment and residential mobility”, in Migration and Gender in the Developed World Eds BoylePJHalfacreeKH (Routledge, London) pp 136–160
11.
BoylePJ, 2002, “Population geography: transnational women on the move”Progress in Human Geography26531–543
BoylePJCookeTJHalfacreeKHSmithDP, 1999, “Integrating GB and US Census microdata for migration analysis: a study of the effects of family migration on partnered women's employment status”International Journal of Population Geography5157–178
14.
BoylePJCookeTJHalfacreeKHSmithDP, 2001, “Rethinking long-distance family migration: the effect on partnered women's employment status in GB and the US”Demography12201–213
15.
BrownMBoylePJ, 2000, “Governmentality, sexuality and the census”, in Closet Space: Geographies of Metaphor from the Body to the Globe Ed. BrownM (Routledge, London) pp 88–115
16.
CastlesSMillerMJ, 1998The Age of Migration (Macmillan, Basingstoke, Hants)
17.
ChampionT, 2002, “Population distribution and migration in the UK: recent trends and research issues”, paper presented at the First International Population Geography Conference, St Andrews, Scotland, July; copy available from author, Geography, Politics and Sociology, University of Newcastle, Newcastle upon Tyne
18.
ClarkWAVHuangY, 2003, “The life course and residential mobility in British housing markets”Environment and Planning A35323–339
19.
ClarkWAVWithersSD, 2002, “Disentangling the interaction of migration, mobility, and labor-force participation’Environment and Planning A34923–945
20.
CookeTJ, 2001, “‘Trailing wife’ or ‘trailing mother’? The effect of parental status on the relationship between family migration and the labor-market participation of married women”Environment and Planning A33419–430
21.
CookeTJ, 2003, “Family migration and the relative earnings of husbands and wives”Annals of the Association of American Geographers93338–349
22.
CromptonRHarrisF, 1999, “Employment, careers, and families: the significance of choice and constraint in women's lives”, in Restructuring Gender Relations and Employment: The Decline of the Male Breadwinner Ed. CromptonR (Oxford University Press, Oxford) pp 128–147
23.
DorlingDReesP, 2003, “A nation still dividing: the British census and social polarisation 1971–2001”Environment and Planning A351287–1313
24.
DuncanSSEdwardsR, 2001Lone Mothers, Paid Work and Gendered Moral Rationalities (Macmillan, Basingstoke, Hants)
25.
DuncanSSSmithDP, 2002, “Geographies of family formations: spatial differences and gender cultures in Britain”Transactions of the Institute of British Geographers, New Series27471–493
26.
DuncanSSSmithDP, 2004, “And then the lover: can we all now choose individual fulfilment?”, in Seven Ages of Man and Woman: a Look at life in the Second Elizabethan Era Eds StewartIVaitilingamR, Economic and Social Research Council, Polaris House, North Star Avenue, Swindon SN2 1UJ, pp 16–19
27.
DuncanSSEdwardsRReynoldsTAlldredP, 2003, “Mothers, paid work and parenting: values and theories”Work, Employment and Society17309–330
28.
EllisMWrightR, 1998, “When immigrants are not migrants: counting arrivals of the foreign born using the US Census”International Migration Review32127–144
29.
FindlayAM, 2002From Brain Exchange to Brain Gain: Policy Implications for the UK of Recent Trends in Skilled Migration from Developing Countries International Migration Papers series 46 (International Labour Office, Geneva)
30.
GreenA, 1995, “The geography of dual career households: a research agenda and selected evidence from secondary data sources for Britain”International Journal for Population Geography129–50
31.
HardillI, 1998, “Gender perspectives on British expatriate work”Geoforum29257–268
32.
HardillI, 2002Gender, Migration and the Dual Career Household (Routledge, London)
33.
HardillI, 2004, “Transnational living and moving experiences: intensified mobility and dual-career households”Population, Space and Place10375–390
34.
HardillIMacDonaldS, 1998, “Choosing to relocate: an examination of the impact of expatriate work on dual-career households”Women's Studies International Forum2121–29
35.
HardillIGreenAEDudlestonACOwenDW, 1997, “Who decides what? Decision making in dual career households”Work, Employment and Society22313–326
36.
IredaleR, 2001, “The migration of professionals: theories and typologies”International Migration397–24
37.
KofmanE, 1999, “Birds of passage a decade later: gender and immigration in the European Union”International Migration Review33269–299
38.
KofmanE, 2002, “Contemporary European migrations, civic stratification and citizenship”Political Geography211035–1054
39.
KofmanE, 2004, “Family-related migration: a critical review of European studies”Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies30243–262
40.
KofmanEPhizackleaARaghuramPSalesR, 2000Gender and International Migration in Europe: Employment, Policies and Welfare (Routledge, London)
41.
KoserKLutzH, 1998The New Migration in Europe: Social Constructions and Social Realities (Macmillan, Basingstoke, Hants)
42.
LiLFindlayA, 1999, “To follow the chicken or not? The role of women in the migration of Hong Kong professional couples”, in Migration and Gender in the Developed World Eds BoylePJHalfacreeKH (Routledge, London) pp 172–185
43.
LindleyJ, 2002, “Race or religion? The impact of religion on the employment and earnings of Britain's ethnic communities”Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies28427–432
44.
MincerJF, 1978, “Family migration decisions”Journal of Political Economy86749–773
45.
NilssonK, 2001, “Migration, gender, and the household structure: changes in earnings among young adults in Sweden”Regional Studies35499–511
46.
Office of Population Censuses and Surveys,1992Census Definitions (HMSO, London)
47.
ParrNLucasDMokM, 2000, “Branch migration and the international dispersal of families”International Journal of Population Geography6213–227
RaghuramP, 2004, “The difference that skills make: gender, family migration strategies and regulated labour markets”Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies30303–322
50.
RaghuramPKofmanE, 2002, “The state, skilled labour markets, and immigration: the case of doctors in England”Environment and Planning A342071–2089
51.
RobinsonV, 1993, “‘Race’, gender, and internal migration within England and Wales”Environment and Planning A251453–1465
52.
SmithDP, 2004, “An ‘untied’ research agenda for family migration: loosening the ‘shackles’ of the past”Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies30263–282
53.
SmithDPBaileyAJ, 2004, “Editorial introduction: linking transnational migrants and transnationalism”Population, Space and Place10357–360
54.
StrohLK, 1999, “Does relocation still benefit corporations and employees? An overview of the literature”Human Resource Management Review9279–308
55.
Walton-RobertsM, 2004, “Transnational migration theory in population geography: gendered practices in networks linking Canada and India”Population, Space and Place10361–374
56.
WhitePJacksonP, 1995, “(Re)theorising population geography”International Journal of Population Geography1111–123
