Evolution of gender and migration scholarship and its challenge

Posted on June 2, 2013 by japansociology

by Ayano Tsukada

Gender, the socially constructed role of and relationship between women and men, is deeply related to our lives. Our thoughts and our behavior are very affected by gender. Migration is not an exception here. In the article published in 2000, the sociologist Pierrette Hondagneu-Sotelo argues: “We now have a clear understanding that migration is gendered and that gender relations change with migration processes” (116). Women and men take different jobs in destination countries, use their money differently, and so on. Migration is also gendered and gendering. It is very important for researchers to know how and to what extent the lives of migrants are affected by gender. Without taking gender into account, we can easily misdescribe the whole picture of migration.

Sociological scholarship on gender and migration has a relatively short history.

In the late 1970s, women were depicted in the migration process and became a subject of many studies, however, scholars at the time only focused on women and men or only on the experience of women. They presented women migrants as a special case.

By the late 1980s, the evidence had grown large enough to require redrawing the map of gender and migration scholarship and then, theoretical formulation emerged. Scholars started to look at household economy as a critical site for revealing the relationship between migration and women, but still they were considering men as household heads and by doing so, they limited the data on women. At this point, the scholars studied men and women separately.

By the mid-1990s, the effective use of qualitative methods to understand the dynamics of gender and migration emerged and the new scholarship showed how migration processes are related to the social construction of gender.

From above, we can see the shift of sociological scholarship on gender and migration from the emphasis on documenting and explaining the gendered character of migration towards exploring its gendering effects.

In spite of this progress, many studies often degrade gender analyses to the level of the family or household and let scholars to ignore gender in other domains of the migration process.

There are still some parts that are missing in gender and migration studies. For instance, there are very few data on the consequences of women’s migration while there are many studies on the effect of men’s migration on their families, their communities, and on how gender is exercised in their home countries. What happens to the men and children who left behind when their wives or mothers migrate? Does women’s migration change the gender relationship of their countries? If so, how? Is it positive or negative?

Right now, the sociological scholarship on migration is more like gender-segregated rather than gender-integrated. It is necessary to look at gender as a central element to explore unexplained phases of migration. I hope that migration Studies in the 21st century will integrate gender more than it has done in the past 30 years.

Reference

Hondagneu-Sotelo, Pierrette. (2001). Doméstica: Immigrant workers cleaning and caring in the shadows of affluence. Berkeley, Los Angeles, and London: University of California Press.

Afsar, Risa. (2011). Contextualizing Gender and Migration in South Asia: Critical Insights. Retrieved from http://gtd.sagepub.com/content/15/3/389 on 25th May, 2013

The rights of irregular migrants

Posted on June 2, 2013 by japansociology

by Tomoaki Inui

Despite Western European nation states’ policy to restrict migration, a large number of irregular migrants stay there because of both economic factors in host countries and existing migration networks between sending and receiving countries(Sciortino 2004; Bommes 2006). These irregular migrants are facing hard situation without explicit human rights.

Some international human rights laws demand access to social rights for irregular migrants. For instance, the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (1966) says that nation-states need to grant social rights to irregular migrants and the Convention of the Rights of the Child (CRC) refer to the rights of children without legal status to attend school. In Europe, it is said that International human rights law often has an effect on the national policy. However, this case shows the limit of the law.

The situation irregular migrants are facing are very different from country to country.Germany is one of the strictest countries in Europe. It doesn’t allow irregular migrants to access social rights such health care and education. The core of German migration system is the German Residence Act. It means all public institutions are obliged to inform the foreigners’ office about the presence of irregular migrants (Laubenthal 2011). As a result of the system, irregular migrants tend to avoid public places.

In some states, states’ laws abolish the system and allows the children without legal status to access to school. These policy changes were caused by two factors. One is the acts of non-governmental actors and the other is the pressure of the international human rights regime. Though the effect of international human rights regime is limited, it still has a big role to change the nation states’ policy.

Also, the institutional structure of Germany had a big role. In Germany, the states have strong influence on the decision of federal government and they can decide lots of things related to the education by themselves. Laubenthal says these policy changes have happened in two ways: federal state government themselves have initiated policy changes and local level authorities have used the local structure of the German political system (Laubenthal 2011).

In Japan, Japanese students can go to school automatically without any process. On the other hand the children without legal residence status can access to education however they have to apply for the school by themselves. However, the problem is not only whether they can attend to school or not, but also the quality of the education. In Japan, most teachers haven’t practiced foreigners’ education. They don’t know how to teach the students who can’t speak Japanese well. Also, they sometimes lose the motivation to teach them because actually some teachers think that it is not their job to teach them. Due to this, they don’t try to teach the children so hard and don’t care if they drop out. Because of these education systems, the children often drop out and go to underclass. This shows that to give irregular migrants social rights is not enough. We have to think how to make good education condition for these children.

Chinese immigrants in New Zealand: A case of educational optimism?

Posted on May 26, 2013 by japansociology

by Yuriko Otsuka

New Zealand is not only known for sheep and agriculture, but it is also known as a country which has a lot of immigrants. The population of New Zealand was about 4,252,277 people in 2010, and in that, the Chinese immigrants were about 85,477 people, which placed them as second among the immigrant nationalities in New Zealand (Peoplemovin, 2010). I stayed in New Zealand for a year since I had an opportunity to study abroad, and when I interacted with my Chinese friends, they told me about their life in China. Their parents had high expectation of their child’s grades, and told me that one of the reasons they came to New Zealand as an exchange student is to avoid the pressures from their parents; especially their mother. Chinese mothers, parents are way strict compared to ordinary Japanese moms and dads.

Tiffany (2007) indicated the reason why Chinese parents encourage their children’s education even though they are out of their home country by saying, high achievement and university degree will eventually lead their child to have a good job, and having a good job “represent the access to financial, professional and life success”. From that we could see that Chinese parents are really strict to their children’s education because they think it is good for their child in the long run. In “Chinese immigrants children’s first year of schooling: an investigation of Chinese immigrant parents’ perspective”, Li (as cited in Tiffany, 2007) said that “Although these [Chinese] families have resided in the new country for several years, they still connect themselves to their motherland and indigenous Chinese cultural values”. These ideas and actions make people call the Chinese mothers “tiger moms”, being strict in order for their children to have high academic achievement.

Considering about tiger moms, people may think becoming like them will enhance their child’s academic achievement, due to the results of Chinese immigrants ranking at the top in the classes in New Zealand. However, we should know that being strict and encouraging children do not mean that the child will achieve high academic scores. Colleen (as cited in Heather and Lois, n.d.) find that 87% of the Chinese students had high expectation towards getting good grades from their parents in New Zealand. However, only 37% said they are achieving their parents’ expectation. From this it is not 100 percent sure whether having a tiger mom is a guarantee of their children to achieve high academic expectation.

Not only having a guarantee of a child having a high academic achievement, but there are some problems of tiger moms in New Zealand. For instance, there is a possibility of a clash between the child and the parent. Similar to the Japanese society, I think the Chinese always makes their child to do work instead of letting them have a break time. I think being in to the slow life in New Zealand may make the Chinese immigrants think whether it is necessary to work this hard? Since I experienced the slow life in New Zealand, I felt like that. Acculturating to the host country will let people know another type of the society where the environment might be the opposite of the motherland. I think it is a good thing to have good grades, and parents to interfere their child’s education. However, interfering too much does not mean that the child will achieve high academic expectations. Furthermore, does not mean that children will become happy by having a tiger mom and achieved high academic expectations.

References

Kao, Grace, & Marta Tienda. (1995). Optimism and achievement: The educational performance of the immigrant youth. Social Science Quarterly, 76, 4.

Kavan, Heather & Lois Wilkinson. (n.d.). Dialogues with dragons: Assisting Chinese students’ academic achievement. Retrieved from http://www.massey.ac.nz/massey/fms/Colleges/College%20of%20Business/Communication%20and%20Journalism/Staff/Staff%20research%20files/hkavan_Dialoguing%20with%20dragons.pdf

Peoplemovin. (2010). Migration flows across the world. Retrieved from http://peoplemov.in/