International migration and changes in gender relations and household structures: Colombian migration to Spain

Abstract

This article analyzes the nets of transnational households of the Colombian migration toward Spain and the changes into the gender relationships in different life dimensions of migrants, women and men. The article emphasizes the social differences among the migrants toward Spain and the United States, the same as the members of their households that reside in Colombia. While the first ones —as much the migrants as their relatives in Colombia— present a considerable smaller educational level, the seconds have a bigger level. This at the same time belongs together with the geographical areas, the Valle of Cauca and Cauca region, which they have the bigger percentage in the immigration toward Spain. So, the main weight of the Colombian immigration in this country is constituted by popular classes and impoverished middle classes of a region with high concentration of black population, without they correspond to the Colombian population’s poorer segments. The central part of the article describes the gender transformations, the affective and sexual life fields, particularly in the case of women that these households transnational carry, in connection with the use of monetary resources that they get, thanks to the women participation in the labor market, although they work in the lowest qualified employments and the most precarious, related with the domestic service activities in the Spanish society. The article reveals the tensions between the immigrant women and its couples in the decision of emigrating and also in the family regrouping process, the same as the conflicts with the family environment that they leave in Colombia.