IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/pal/eurjdr/v35y2023i5d10.1057_s41287-022-00559-5.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Migration and the Autonomy of Women Left Behind

Author

Listed:
  • Julia Anna Matz

    (University of Bonn)

  • Linguère Mously Mbaye

    (African Development Bank Group)

Abstract

This paper provides new evidence on the impact of migration of male household heads on the autonomy of their spouses. Using panel household survey data from Ethiopia, the methodology mainly relies on an instrumental variables approach that addresses the endogeneity inherent in the relationship and carefully pays attention to the role of remittances. After correcting for endogeneity, we find consistent evidence that male migration increases female self-determination and decision-making power, and (to a lesser extent) the ability to protect one’s interests. As all these variables measure autonomy, our results suggest that migration of husbands offers an opportunity for women to become more autonomous in traditional societies.

Suggested Citation

  • Julia Anna Matz & Linguère Mously Mbaye, 2023. "Migration and the Autonomy of Women Left Behind," The European Journal of Development Research, Palgrave Macmillan;European Association of Development Research and Training Institutes (EADI), vol. 35(5), pages 1059-1079, October.
    • Handle: RePEc:pal:eurjdr:v:35:y:2023:i:5:d:10.1057_s41287-022-00559-5
    DOI: 10.1057/s41287-022-00559-5
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://link.springer.com/10.1057/s41287-022-00559-5
    File Function: Abstract
    Download Restriction: Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1057/s41287-022-00559-5?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to look for a different version below or search for a different version of it.

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Hein de Haas & Aleida van Rooij, 2010. "Migration as Emancipation? The Impact of Internal and International Migration on the Position of Women Left Behind in Rural Morocco," Oxford Development Studies, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 38(1), pages 43-62.
    2. Muntaha Rakib & Julia Anna Matz, 2016. "The Impact of Shocks on Gender-differentiated Asset Dynamics in Bangladesh," Journal of Development Studies, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 52(3), pages 377-395, March.
    3. Alcaraz, Carlo & Chiquiar, Daniel & Salcedo, Alejandrina, 2012. "Remittances, schooling, and child labor in Mexico," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 97(1), pages 156-165.
    4. Adama Konseiga, 2007. "Household Migration Decisions as Survival Strategy: The Case of Burkina Faso," Journal of African Economies, Centre for the Study of African Economies, vol. 16(2), pages 198-233, March.
    5. Francisca Antman, 2015. "Gender discrimination in the allocation of migrant household resources," Journal of Population Economics, Springer;European Society for Population Economics, vol. 28(3), pages 565-592, July.
    6. Blessing Mberu, 2006. "Internal migration and household living conditions in Ethiopia," Demographic Research, Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research, Rostock, Germany, vol. 14(21), pages 509-540.
    7. Nancy Qian, 2008. "Missing Women and the Price of Tea in China: The Effect of Sex-Specific Earnings on Sex Imbalance," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 123(3), pages 1251-1285.
    8. Shelah Bloom & David Wypij & Monica Gupta, 2001. "Dimensions of women’s autonomy and the influence on maternal health care utilization in a north indian city," Demography, Springer;Population Association of America (PAA), vol. 38(1), pages 67-78, February.
    9. Lupin Rahman & Vijayendra Rao, 2004. "The Determinants of Gender Equity in India: Examining Dyson and Moore's Thesis with New Data," Population and Development Review, The Population Council, Inc., vol. 30(2), pages 239-268, June.
    10. John Hoddinott, 2006. "Shocks and their consequences across and within households in Rural Zimbabwe," Journal of Development Studies, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 42(2), pages 301-321.
    11. Kumar, Neha & Quisumbing, Agnes R., 2015. "Policy Reform toward Gender Equality in Ethiopia: Little by Little the Egg Begins to Walk," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 67(C), pages 406-423.
    12. Carrington, William J & Detragiache, Enrica & Vishwanath, Tara, 1996. "Migration with Endogenous Moving Costs," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 86(4), pages 909-930, September.
    13. Mckenzie, David & Rapoport, Hillel, 2007. "Network effects and the dynamics of migration and inequality: Theory and evidence from Mexico," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 84(1), pages 1-24, September.
    14. Tuccio, Michele & Wahba, Jackline, 2018. "Return migration and the transfer of gender norms: Evidence from the Middle East," Journal of Comparative Economics, Elsevier, vol. 46(4), pages 1006-1029.
    15. Rachel Connelly & Kenneth Roberts & Zhenzhen Zheng, 2010. "The Impact of Circular Migration on the Position of Married Women in Rural China," Feminist Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 16(1), pages 3-41.
    16. Stefan Dercon, 2002. "Income Risk, Coping Strategies, and Safety Nets," The World Bank Research Observer, World Bank, vol. 17(2), pages 141-166, September.
    17. Mark M. Pitt & Shahidur R. Khandker, 1998. "The Impact of Group-Based Credit Programs on Poor Households in Bangladesh: Does the Gender of Participants Matter?," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 106(5), pages 958-996, October.
    18. Woodruff, Christopher & Zenteno, Rene, 2007. "Migration networks and microenterprises in Mexico," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 82(2), pages 509-528, March.
    19. Kaivan Munshi, 2003. "Networks in the Modern Economy: Mexican Migrants in the U. S. Labor Market," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 118(2), pages 549-599.
    20. Anderson, Siwan & Eswaran, Mukesh, 2009. "What determines female autonomy? Evidence from Bangladesh," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 90(2), pages 179-191, November.
    21. Julia Anna Matz & Gaia Narciso, 2010. "Does reinforcing spouses’ land rights improve children’s outcomes? Evidence from a quasi-natural experiment in rural Vietnam," The Institute for International Integration Studies Discussion Paper Series iiisdp348, IIIS.
    22. World Bank, 2011. "Migration and Remittances Factbook 2011 : Second Edition," World Bank Publications - Books, The World Bank Group, number 2522.
    23. Kumar, Neha & Quisumbing, Agnes R., 2012. "Beyond “Death Do Us Part”: The Long-Term Implications of Divorce Perceptions on Women’s Well-Being and Child Schooling in Rural Ethiopia," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 40(12), pages 2478-2489.
    24. Kochar, Anjini, 1995. "Explaining Household Vulnerability to Idiosyncratic Income Shocks," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 85(2), pages 159-164, May.
    25. Klaus Deininger & Aparajita Goyal & Hari Nagarajan, 2013. "Women's Inheritance Rights and Intergenerational Transmission of Resources in India," Journal of Human Resources, University of Wisconsin Press, vol. 48(1), pages 114-141.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Jose, Anu, 2024. "Income shocks and intrahousehold resource allocation: evidence from rural Ethiopia," MPRA Paper 121873, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    2. I-Ling Shen & Frédéric Docquier & Hillel Rapoport, 2010. "Remittances and inequality: a dynamic migration model," The Journal of Economic Inequality, Springer;Society for the Study of Economic Inequality, vol. 8(2), pages 197-220, June.
    3. Manuela Angelucci, 2015. "Migration and Financial Constraints: Evidence from Mexico," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 97(1), pages 224-228, March.
    4. Muntaha Rakib & Julia Anna Matz, 2016. "The Impact of Shocks on Gender-differentiated Asset Dynamics in Bangladesh," Journal of Development Studies, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 52(3), pages 377-395, March.
    5. Alan de Brauw & John Giles, 2018. "Migrant Labor Markets and the Welfare of Rural Households in the Developing World: Evidence from China," The World Bank Economic Review, World Bank, vol. 32(1), pages 1-18.
    6. Docquier, Frederic & Rapoport, Hillel, 2004. "Skilled migration: the perspective of developing countries," Policy Research Working Paper Series 3382, The World Bank.
    7. Hanson, Gordon H., 2010. "International Migration and the Developing World," Handbook of Development Economics, in: Dani Rodrik & Mark Rosenzweig (ed.), Handbook of Development Economics, edition 1, volume 5, chapter 0, pages 4363-4414, Elsevier.
    8. Jason Davis & Noli Brazil, 2016. "Migration, Remittances and Nutrition Outcomes of Left-Behind Children: A National-Level Quantitative Assessment of Guatemala," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 11(3), pages 1-17, March.
    9. Yuyu Chen & Ginger Zhe Jin & Yang Yue, 2024. "Peer Migration in China," Oxford Bulletin of Economics and Statistics, Department of Economics, University of Oxford, vol. 86(2), pages 257-313, April.
    10. Anzoategui, Diego & Demirgüç-Kunt, Asli & Martínez Pería, María Soledad, 2014. "Remittances and Financial Inclusion: Evidence from El Salvador," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 54(C), pages 338-349.
    11. Simone Bertoli, 2010. "Networks, Sorting and Self-selection of Ecuadorian Migrants," Annals of Economics and Statistics, GENES, issue 97-98, pages 261-288.
    12. Tobias Stöhr, 2015. "Siblings’ interaction in migration decisions: who provides for the elderly left behind?," Journal of Population Economics, Springer;European Society for Population Economics, vol. 28(3), pages 593-629, July.
    13. Anghel, Remus Gabriel & Piracha, Matloob & Randazzo, Teresa, 2015. "Migrants' Remittances: Channelling Globalization," IZA Discussion Papers 9516, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    14. Jesus Fernández-Huertas Moraga, 2008. "Wealth constraints, skill prices or networks: what determines emigrant selection?," Working Papers 346, Barcelona School of Economics.
    15. Davis, Jason & Brazil, Noli, 2016. "Disentangling fathers’ absences from household remittances in international migration: The case of educational attainment in Guatemala," International Journal of Educational Development, Elsevier, vol. 50(C), pages 1-11.
    16. David McKenzie & Hillel Rapoport, 2010. "Self-Selection Patterns in Mexico-U.S. Migration: The Role of Migration Networks," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 92(4), pages 811-821, November.
    17. Abu S. Shonchoy, 2015. "Seasonal Migration and Microcredit During Agricultural Lean Seasons: Evidence from Northwest Bangladesh," The Developing Economies, Institute of Developing Economies, vol. 53(1), pages 1-26, March.
    18. Sonia Bhalotra & Abhishek Chakravarty & Dilip Mookherjee & Francisco J. Pino, 2019. "Property Rights and Gender Bias: Evidence from Land Reform in West Bengal," American Economic Journal: Applied Economics, American Economic Association, vol. 11(2), pages 205-237, April.
    19. David Escamilla-Guerrero, 2024. "All aboard! Railroad access and Mexico-US mass migration," Oxford Economic and Social History Working Papers _212, University of Oxford, Department of Economics.
    20. Fernández-Huertas Moraga, Jesús, 2013. "Understanding different migrant selection patterns in rural and urban Mexico," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 103(C), pages 182-201.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Migration; Women empowerment; Female autonomy; Left behind; Africa;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • D13 - Microeconomics - - Household Behavior - - - Household Production and Intrahouse Allocation
    • J16 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demographic Economics - - - Economics of Gender; Non-labor Discrimination
    • O15 - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth - - Economic Development - - - Economic Development: Human Resources; Human Development; Income Distribution; Migration

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:pal:eurjdr:v:35:y:2023:i:5:d:10.1057_s41287-022-00559-5. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Sonal Shukla or Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.palgrave-journals.com/ .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.