Gender and Migration: West Indians in Comparative Perspective

Abstract

This article explores gender issues in West Indian migration by taking a comparative -cross-national -perspective. The focus is on the three major West Indian migration movements of the mid- and late-twentieth and early twenty-first centuries -to the United States Britain and Canada. A comparative approach has a number of benefits for the study of West Indian migration. It not only points to similarities and contrasts in gender-related patterns among West Indian migrants in the United States Britain and Canada but also forces us to try to account for them. It brings out in an especially dramatic way the role of the context of reception and the receiving countrys immigration policies in shaping male-female differences in West Indian migration flows as well as immigrant adaptation. The comparative analysis of the three migrations in this article explores the reasons for and patterns of West Indian migration as they relate to gender including the practice of leaving children behind in the Caribbean as well as aspects of the labour market incorporation of West Indian men and women when they have arrived and settled in the migrant destination. More specifically the comparisons raise some intriguing questions. Why for example did West Indian women comprise a greater proportion of the migrations to the United States and Canada than to Britain? Why were West Indian women more likely to work in caregiving jobs in private homes in the United States and Canada than in Britain? And have the dynamics of transnational motherhood differed in the North American and British contexts?