Background
From time immemorial Nepali households have had at least one member away from home for work or education, depicting a pattern of migration in the country. The number of outmigrants as per the Department of Foreign Employment (DoFE) in Nepal was only 3,605 in 1993/94, which has now increased to over five million as of 2019/20 published in the Nepal Migration Report 2020 by the Ministry of Labour, Employment and Social Security (MOLESS). However, labor migration in Nepal has mostly remained a male phenomenon as the female migrant workers accounted for a little more than 5% in the last decade. Given such a situation, it is imperative to delve into the trends of female labor migration in Nepal, its reasons and patterns over these years.
Female labor migration in Nepal and its reasons
Although there have been rigorous studies related to migration processes and their effects on the economy, comparatively less consideration has been given to female migrants in Nepal. Nevertheless, the migration of Nepali women is an old narrative and one of the leading factors for this is thought to be feminization of poverty. To put it more simply, feminization of poverty was identified as a major factor contributing to Nepali women seeking foreign employment in a study carried out by the Asia-Pacific Research and Training Network on Trade (ARTNeT). As per the study, women’s domestic care services are in abundant supply and require minimum economic investment, pushing them to migrate as a hedge against poverty. To validate this statement, the International Labor Migration report states that an estimated 67 million domestic workers worldwide exist where 80% are women and girls who perform such work either paid or unpaid. Currently, globalization has also made this an easy choice for such women.
Besides, such a tendency in female migration is particularly common in underdeveloped and developing countries where women migrate to support the care economy of the developed countries. This is because it is believed that women from developing countries have the familiarity with domestic care skills due to their gender roles. Moreover, globally, it is also conceptualized that care services are products that can be bought and sold in the market. Given this, most underdeveloped and developing countries, including Nepal, have seen an increase in feminization of labor migration.
Furthermore, most literature in the case of Nepal opine that female migrant move majorly because of the lack of economic prospects and poor living conditions. Male members of Nepali families are typically provided with formal education and skills training. After marriage, either the male members or older women of the family make decisions about purchases, daily expenses, and buying or selling assets, limiting newly-wed females’ authority. As a result, women are obliged to juggle domestic tasks with other responsibilities like farming. There are also additional push factors for women to seek employment abroad, such as marital issues, gender discrimination, improving children’s future, and servicing debts at home. This implies that the decision to migrate among most female migrants is influenced by household economic concerns.
Moreover, female migrants with a higher level of mobility prior to migration, such as work of membership in community groups, are more confident in migrating overseas for career opportunities. Women can also escape repressive societal traditions and stigmas by migrating, and this is mostly for divorced, widowed or separated women.
In addition, the National Living Standards Survey 2010/11 conducted by the Central Bureau of Statistics (CBS) presents findings on the absentee female population. Under this, in terms of proportion, more women than men traveled to pursue education. However, the relocation for females is bound by difficulties starting from their homes/families, their country, to the country of transit, and the country of employment. Nevertheless, all of these factors encourage women to migrate abroad.
Patterns of female migration in Nepal
The pattern for female migrant workers differs slightly and exhibits a greater variety than for male migrants. Owing to the open border that Nepal shares with India and its close socio-cultural ties, India has been the most preferred labor destination for Nepalis. Historically, female migration from Nepal was linked to cross-border marriages in India, resettlement of entire families in Northeast India, Burma, and Bhutan, or being lured/trafficked into working as sex workers. While such a pattern of migration to India is still common and mostly undocumented, many women also started migrating independently for employment in foreign destinations.
In 1980s, Nepali women began to travel to Southeast and East Asia. After the People’s movement of 1990 in Nepal, female migration as international laborers, primarily domestic workers and caregivers, picked up. By the 1990s, their migration was concentrated in the domestic and service sectors in Hong Kong and Japan. In the 2000s, countries in the Arab States began attracting more Nepali female migrants to work as domestic and service workers. By 2007, an estimated 80% of Nepali women working in the Arab States were undertaking domestic work within private households, such as cleaning, cooking, or caring for children or elderly family members. Other Nepali women migrants worked in hotels, restaurants, catering, manufacturing, medical services and beauty parlors both within Asia and abroad.
In more recent times, UAE, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, and Cyprus are the top five countries where 77% of total female migrants of Nepal go for employment. Moreover, over 50% of Nepali female migrants hail from districts of Provinces 1 and 3 such as Jhapa, Sindhupalchok, Makwanpur, Morang, Kathmandu, Kavrepalanchok, Ilam, Nuwakot, Sunsari, and Chitwan. This data is consistent in 2017/18 and 2018/19 as per the latest report.
Trend in female labor migration in Nepal
Female migration was undocumented and illegal till 2007 in the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) and other neighboring countries. As per the DoFE, more than 176,000 women have received labor permits since 2008 to go to labor destinations such as the United Arab Emirates (UAE), Kuwait, Malaysia, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Lebanon, Cyprus, and Jordan. Contrastingly, another report by the DoFE stated that only 21,412 Nepali women were legally working overseas as of 2014/15. The number of labor permits received by female migrants surged by 106% between 2010/11 and 2014/15 in comparison to an increase of only 39% of male migrants. The share of female migrants stood at around 8.5% in 2018/19 as per the Nepal Labor Migration Report 2020.
The figure below shows the trend in the number of outmigrants by disaggregating the labor approvals by gender to show the increase in female labor migration over the years:
Figure 1 Trend in obtaining labor approvals (Disaggregated by gender in terms of the total number)
Source: Nepal Labor Migration Report 2020
Irrespective of the number of migrants, the International Organization for Migration (IOM) recognizes that migration can reorganize gender relations and power chains or hierarchies by allowing people to improve their economic well-being and support themselves and their abandoned relatives and family members. Although MOLESS states that migration in Nepal is a male phenomenon, female migration is, undoubtedly, on the rise. It has the potential to help build their standard of living and the Nepali economy given they are also economic agents of the nation contributing through remittances to the nation’s economy.
Nasala Maharjan is a Bachelor's in Business Administration (BBA Honors) graduate from Kathmandu University with a major in Finance. She is mostly interested in researching and writing about economic development and contemporary issues in Nepal. She joined Nepal Economic Forum (NEF) as a Research Fellow in 2019 and is currently a beed at beed management.
