Transnational Mobilities in Europe: ‘Living Apart Together' and Gendered Outcomes

Historically women have been associated with immobility and passivity, for a long time invisible or regarded as dependents rather than migrants in their own right, their migration tied to migration of men. Restrictions to autonomous women’s mobility still persist in some countries or they face moral stigmatization at some stage of their itinerary. And yet the capacity to be mobile is sometimes easier available to women than to men because of labour demand in specific economic sectors. Being a woman becomes even an advantage so they increasingly become mobile family breadwinners, sometimes pioneering migration even in societies with traditionally male dominated patterns of migration. Women are therefore exposed to contradictory pressures, relating to their double role: as breadwinners, requiring emigration and absence and that of family carers habitually assuming physical presence in the vicinity of those they care for. They are therefore typically the first ones blamed for the social costs of migration and the disruption of a gender order.

While for both men and women crossing of borders can lead to more autonomy and challenging of established gender norms, more opportunities in using the acquired social capital within a broader migratory space,  it can also lead to new dependencies and reinforce existing gender boundaries and hierarchies. Gender order seems resistant to change in migration, even in situations of apparent reversal, when women become main breadwinners. Rather than speaking in terms of gains and losses this presentation looks at the ways contradictory outcomes are negotiated. In several examples of transnational mobility, it will be shown how the gender order is challenged, apparently preserved, but also how“handicaps” are turned into advantages and  traditional patterns relied on in pursuit of own objectives.