Feminisation of Migration

Abstract

This chapter provides a feminisation of migration perspective, which impacts the family life of Zimbabwean female migrants. Research on the feminisation of Zimbabwean migration in South Africa is growing, addressing employment, violence, and oppressive conditions. Therefore, there is ample support for women migrants to have the ease of movement to return home to Zimbabwe. However, there is little interrogation of how the feminisation of migration impacts changes in social roles in families of migrating women. The aim is to establish a set of assumptions about this feminisation of migration concerning families of Zimbabwean female migrants in South Africa. The objective is to understand the influence of feminine migration on family life, exemplified by some Zimbabwean female migrant cases in South Africa. In this qualitative study, a systematic literature review was employed to evaluate critically and to clearly explain changing social roles within the Zimbabwean family life context. Data were obtained using a literature review method, and interpretation and reflection analysis methods and techniques were used. Theoretical considerations that underpin this chapter are the feminisation of migration and the feminisation of kinship. The results comprise some preconceptions, values, and assumptions about the influence of feminine migration on changing social roles within the family life of Zimbabwean female migrants in South Africa. The contribution is towards the link between the feminisation of migration and the feminisation of family life in the Zimbabwe-South Africa migration context. The significance of this chapter is to offer another angle by contributing to diasporic encounters and experiences, migration policy, and family life studies.