The migratory project of undocumented migrants by gender

Abstract

This article is based on the different character of the migratory project according to gender. However, different female motives are also interlinked with those of men, as a result of the migratory dynamics, which foster family migration. With this aim, the author uses survey data which includes a 11,5 per cent of the work permits application of the 1996 regularisation of foreigners in Spain. Throught the diversity of projects and conditions for social integration according to gender, the article sustains three basic ideas: 1) the acknowledgement of the whole of the migratory cicle; 2) a need to go beyond the stereotyped image of the indocumented migrant, especially seen as illiterate, and 3) to analyse the heterogeneous component of migration flows particularly when cross-cutting the following variables: sex and nationality, contextualised in the different periods of the Spanish immigration policies (pre-legal, pre-political and political).