Book review

Abstract

Katharine M. Donato and Donna Gabaccia (2015). Gender and International Migration: From the Slavery Era to the Global Age. New York: Russell Sage Foundation.  254 Pages (paperback). (ISBN 978-0-87154-546-6)

Written from the perspective of a historian and a sociologist/demographer, this book dispels the idea of the ‘feminization of migration’ that has recently taken credence in international migration studies. The feminization of migration, defined as the rise in the proportion of women in the migration flow, is generally linked to popular alarm linking it to exploitation, trafficking, the sex industry and the like. In this work, Donato and Gabaccia argue that the migration of women is not a new phenomenon, but rather, women have been a significant part of international migration flows, both free and coerced, for more than four centuries (1600-2000).