Female Migration in Lesotho : Determinants and Opportunities

Botea, Ioana ; Chakravarty, Shubha ; Compernolle, Nell

World Bank, Washington, DC

关键词: LABOR MIGRATION;    GENDER;    HIV AIDS;    TEXTILES;    DOMESTIC WORK;   

DOI  :  10.1596/1813-9450-8307
RP-ID  :  WPS8307

学科分类：社会科学、人文和艺术（综合）

来源: World Bank Open Knowledge Repository

【 摘 要 】

Migration, internal and external,continues to be a dominant livelihood strategy forhouseholds in Lesotho, with almost half (43 percent) ofhouseholds reporting at least one member living away. Thepast decade has seen a sharp increase in female migration,due to a halt in new hires of Basotho men in South Africanmines and a concomitant expansion of jobs primarily forwomen in the export garment sector in Maseru and Maputsoe.This study analyzes female migration using three waves ofthe Demographic and Health Survey (2004, 2009, and 2014) aswell as primary data collected by the research team inMarch-April 2015. The findings indicate that femalemigration in Lesotho is primarily driven by economic"push" (rather than "pull") factors,often due to shocks to the household, such as job loss,death, or bad crops. Migrants are often seen as"strugglers" and their households of origin arejust as poor as rural households with no migrants. Moreover,the study finds conclusive evidence that women'semployment in sectors dominated by migrants is stronglycorrelated with HIV/AIDS: 55 percent of women working ingarment factories and 38 percent of domestic workers are HIVpositive, as opposed to the national average of 30 percent.These findings point to three policy recommendations tosupport female migrants and their families: (i) lower thebarriers to secondary education in rural areas, (ii)diversify and expand employment opportunities for men andwomen, and (iii) provide HIV/AIDS prevention and treatmentservices to garment factory workers as well as migrantsworking in the informal sector.