From: James Rogers (jamesr@best.com)
Date: Sat Jun 01 2002 - 13:02:28 MDT
Hi folks,
As always, Google is your friend and I was able to put together a more
academically sound picture of gender migration on our planet, which is by no
means uniform. I'm don't have time to go into detail (I'm running late
getting ready for a wedding today), so I'll summarize and let everyone do
their own googling.
Females generally migrate from rural to urban environments in larger numbers
than males in Europe, North America, and South America.
Female rural to urban migration in many parts of Asia and sub-Saharan Africa
is smaller than male migration.
There are a number of studies claiming that the inhibiting factor in
migration in sub-Saharan Africa and parts of Asia (e.g. China) are strong
disparities between the genders with respect to economic and cultural
treatment which reduce the value proposition for female migration from rural
areas. An example from Africa is that men who move from rural to urban
environments make more money, which more than compensates for the added
expense of living in the urban environment. Women who move to the urban
environments in Africa have roughly the same opportunities that they have in
the rural environment, which adds a strong negative economic consequence to
urban migration for women.
The disparities in gender migration in the western world aren't huge (the
gender migration balance apparently ranges from 50-55% female in the
majority of places), but it adds up and creates a gender distribution
gradient between rural and urban areas. Generally speaking it appears that
given roughly equal economic and cultural treatment, there IS a disparity in
gender migration to urban environments.
Given this, I'll stand by my original premise of a gender disparity. I might
modify my hypothesis in certain details based on what I've read, but it
doesn't seem unreasonable. Obviously, at some point the migration balance
has to reverse in a given locale, but at that point the rural areas will be
rapidly becoming empty. I've watched small towns become ghost towns, and
the men really are the last ones to leave for the most part.
Cheers,
-James Rogers
jamesr@best.com
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