Introduces a special issue on women and migration. Discusses immigrant women's participation within the world labor market, the ideologies affecting them, the effects of migration on sex roles and family patterns, and women's reasons for migration. Also discusses sex biases in research and policymaking concerning migration. (KH)

A study of women in migration in Third World countries since 1960 reveals that, contrary to assumptions, more women are migrating autonomously from rural to urban areas in an often unsuccessful effort to improve their economic status. The results of the study of migration patterns in Africa, Asia, Central America, South America, and the Middle…

Spurred in part by the apparent contradiction between recent data on the magnitude of autonomous female migration and the lack of acknowledgment of that data in recent literature, a 1979 study attempted to define women migrants in 46 Third World Countries in terms of age, marital status, socioeconomic status, factors motivating migration, and…