TITLE:
“Doing Gender”: Women Labor Migration and Households Transition in Nepal
AUTHORS:
Anchala Chaudhary
KEYWORDS:
Doing Gender, Breadwinner, Households Transitions, Women Migrants
JOURNAL NAME:
Open Journal of Social Sciences,
Vol.10 No.11,
October
24,
2022
ABSTRACT: The increasing trend of women migration in
transnational space doesn’t open a new discourse in global labor market but
also assists in social construction of gender. Though government of Nepal doesn’t have any objection over men
migration but it dispirited female labor migration due to various reasons. The
growing incidents of physical assault in foreign land and patriarchal ideology such as: prevalence of male breadwinners, female
homemaker, managing work within the domestic space and cultural
restrictions restricts on women to participate in public spaces. This paper
examines the reconstruction of households structure and the changing roles, with
a focus on gendered power relation in the slum community of Pokhara
Metropolitan City, Nepal. Particular, attention
is paid to the transformation of breadwinner power of men to women and increasing
women participation in decision making process. The evidences presented here
use data from both secondary literature and primary sources. The data have been
purposively selected from the 199 households of the women migrants families who
have been migrated at least three years before the study conducted in between
March and July 2022. Both quantitative and qualitative methods were chosen for
the data collection and analysis. The results explain changing scenario of gender role and households
transition due to access of social, cultural and economic capital accumulated
by migrants. Once women depart for labor migration, the family left behind
especially mother and husband are more responsible to carry both inside as well
as outside activities along with childcare. In joint family, mother/mother-in-laws were replacing the role of migrant and doing
migrants tasks; whereas in nuclear family husbands is more responsible for all
conducts performed by their wives and acts as like that. The study also
provides a more nuanced understanding of the involvement of migrants women in
decision-making power in household’s domain and the way of dealing with
upcoming socio-cultural obstacles that hinder their participation in public sphere.