Women on the move: migration, care work and health

Overview

In so many homes and places around the world, women of all ages, ethnicities, cultures and backgrounds are providing essential care to others, within and outside their own families, to sustain health, well-being and comfort. While men also contribute, available data show that the overwhelming proportion of care workers worldwide is women, and increasingly they are migrant women.

As women’s economic empowerment builds, lives are being transformed, including decisions made to travel from their own homes, families and communities to earn a living. In the destination countries and territories, these migrant women are making a positive contribution to the health and well-being of others as they work in the care sector, often informally. They fill unmet needs for long-term care in our ageing societies and buttress health and social care systems in many countries as a kind of invisible subsidy. However, their own health is at stake. Are they able to access the services they need? If not, why not, and what can be done about it? What happens to the health and care situation for the families they leave behind? Although there are still more questions than answers and data gaps remains substantial, it is right and timely to ask such questions, and develop and implement workable solutions as a global community.