This paper deals with the migration of Latin American women from rural to urban areas and their occupational and domestic alternatives in the cities. Inquiry into the relationship between work (or economic participation) of women and family organization has been neglected in the Latin American social sciences, especially in studies focusing on the urban areas. Thus the ideas presented here are highly tentative, and my purpose is to suggest a framework for future research rather than an analytical scheme to cope with a mass of existing data. I will first discuss the main characteristics of rural-to-urban migration in the region, in order to place female migrants in the context of spatial relocation for the population as a whole. Then I will address questions about the productive role of migrant women in the cities, especially their role in domestic service. For the individual migrant, domestic service may be an important means of adaptation to urban life and the urban labor market, although there is some stigma attached to this kind of work. Within the labor market, domestic service has some specific features as regards both supply and demand. Finally, domestic service has a special place in the urban economy, sharing traits of domestic production for selfconsumption while carrying a monetary payment and thus sharing some traits of wage work. In dealing with this last subject, the focus will necessarily have to shift to the household unit (or the family) where both the unpaid and the paid domestic production take place.