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Making Women’s Migration (In)Visible: A Comparative Perspective on the 19th and 21st Centuries

A blogpost by Nadine Dunja Franziska Baba

Who comes to mind when thinking about migration? Women have always migrated but have they been mentioned in the same way as men? This article attempts to present the experiences of migrating women in two different centuries. Although the reasons for migration differ, focusing on women’s (in)visibility makes it possible to compare the lived experiences. Sylvie Aprile, Delphine Diaz, Alexandre Dupont, and Antonin Durand analyse women in exile in the 19th century, whereas Helma Lutz addresses aspects and challenges of transnational care migration in the 21st century.

Not Just Companions: Making Women Visible in 19th Century Exile

Focussing on women in exile, Aprile et al.  how historical sources generally portrayed women as passive figures in migration who were primarily accompanying men.1 Through this perspective their agency was not recognized. The fact that women were often not mentioned in official documents hinders the process of understanding what life in exile was like for them.2 Letters provide valuable insights into daily activities, emotions and challenges at the time.3 Migrating women and those in exile face(d) different challenges. Aprile et al. focus on women’s political engagement in exile and argue that due to their invisibility women were in a sense more free than men and less likely to be suspected to be politically involved.4

Invisible Labor, Invisible Lives: Migrant Care Workers Today

Shadow of a group of people standing next to a train.

Berlin, 2024. Photo by Flo (@floknipst), Unsplash: https://unsplash.com/de/fotos/eine-gruppe-von-menschen-die-neben-einem-zug-stehen-mvGy4pB1GJQ

Although Lutz does not mention the political engagement of female migrant workers in the care sector, the challenges these women face stand from the narrative of transnational care as a win-win situation. This narrative tends to overlook the care drain in the country of origin or aspects like the challenges of transnational motherhood. For several reasons, women find themselves in a precarious situation in the country of destination, which remains invisible.5 Examples include their living situation, earning less than national salary rates and experiencing different forms of institutional discrimination regarding residence status, work permits, and losing social rights.6 Unlike Aprile et al.7 who mention women reaching out to the authorities by sending letters , Lutz does not provide information on this. However, as their social status improves in their country of origin and as the narrative of transnational care is presented as a win-win situation8 it may not encourage women to openly address the authorities regarding their individual situations. Lutz9 presents the categories of global care chains and care gain/drain to explain this phenomenon. The following remarks can only provide a brief overview of “how inequality is currently being redistributed on a transnational scale in various ways”.10

Between Family Duties and Political Action: Two Sides of Women’s Migration

Aprile et al.11 demonstrate how women in exile engaged politically, emphasising how little information can be found about it: “this silence reflects the way representations of the period downplayed their involvement”.  Furthermore, clear parallels to the 21st century can be seen – Aprile et al.12 shows how exiled women were “relegated to the private sphere and the gendered activities traditionally performed by women” , and Lutz illustrates this phenomenon by demonstrating that transnational care is often carried out by migrating women. Aprile et al.13 on the one hand speak of a “dual burden”  for women in exile, as they were responsible for household duties while also supporting their husbands regarding their political engagement. The dual burden Lutz illustrates on the other hand is that of transnational care often including transnational motherhood which puts mothers in a complex situation. While their motivation to work abroad often stems from the desire to provide better educational prospects for their children, they may be accused of neglecting their children.14 This puts additional moral pressure on them, feeling the need to explain themselves as mothers.15 This shows how even though families are separated through care migration, educating children and caring for them still takes place, just in different forms. Lutz16 explains in detail how the new technologies of the early 21st century play an important role in transnational motherhood while keeping in mind the limitations that come with it like living with the employer’s family and possible restrictions to contact the family or the age of the children. Educating children is also named as one of the tasks of women in exile just like managing the “family´s material circumstances”17 like the budget and taking care of the household.

Aprile et al. (Ibid., 185.)) continue to demonstrate that women in exile acted as political figures while also carrying out the family’s responsibilities . Here, salons are presented as a form of political activity situated between the private and public spheres, fostering cultural and political gatherings.18 The way in which Aprile et al. describe the household as “a short step to turning to a more overtly political activity, yet without too visibly transgressing gender stereotypes” is not evident in Lutz’s works.19 Lutz does not go into detail how women in care migration think about their situation or the actions they take outside their work agreements. The fact that women in care migration often live with the employers’ families as so-called “24-hour live-in care workers”20 speaks for itself in terms of visibility. While Aprile et al.21 name forced marriage as an example for women to flee their country of origin Lutz22 does not discus sexual violence specifically but refers to “the role of the state as a silent accomplice”  by upholding the precarious and often unregistered working conditions migrant care workers face.

Both Aprile et al. and Lutz explore how migration impacts family dynamics, emphasising that there is no singular outcome. Aprile et al.23 on the one hand note that “[e]xile did not destroy couples or families, but often weakened them. It could also strengthen ties and turn exile into a way of escaping the world together”. Lutz24 non the other hand focuses more on care migration leading to transnational motherhood, which as stated can not be defined as solely negative or positive. Despite transnational motherhood being challenging “we also see that loyalties within transnational families are not weakened as a result of migration; rather, familial ties are maintained and strengthened by means of virtual intimacy and substitute routines”.25 Both texts highlight the complex and ambivalent effects migration has on family life.

Learning from the Past

It becomes clear that there is never a single story, because women’s experience in exile differs just as those of female migrant care workers. Factors like distance and transnational motherhood play a crucial role in shaping care migration in the 21st century, particularly for live-in care workers. Looking at the experience of women in exile just about two hundred years ago shockingly demonstrates there are still similarities nowadays. Especially regarding who is expected to be responsible to take on care work and is pushed back into the private sphere. This is not to say that women today find themselves solely in this position but migrant care workers predominantly being women can be seen as an example of this. Their work in private households alone renders female migrant care workers invisible and the fact that they often migrate by themselves, leaving their families behind emphasises how their experience is made invisible. Therefore, the remarks on transnational care work demonstrated how inequality is redistributed nowadays, while calling it a win-win situation. While it is clear that some regions benefit from this care gain, the countries of origin of many, most female migrant care workers are left with the consequences of a care drain. From this perspective, it can be understood as a call to stop repeating or rather perpetuating the invisibility of women. Especially given today’s developments, there is a risk that, three centuries from now, the experiences and challenges of female migrant care workers might be neglected, just as those of women in exile in the 19th century have been – creating the impression that they were exceptional.

 

Nadine Dunja Franziska Baba studied primary education in Germany and moved to Innsbruck in October 2024 for the masters degree “Gender, Culture and Social Change”.

 

Diesen Artikel zitieren: Baba, Nadine Dunja Franziska: Making Women’s Migration (In)Visible: A Comparative Perspective on the 19th and 21st Centuries, in: Migration and Belonging, 26/09/2025, https://belonging.hypotheses.org/6124 [Abrufdatum].

  1. Aprile, Sylvie / Diaz, Delphine / Dupont, Alexandre / Durand, Antonin: Gender and exile, in: Diaz, Delphine / Aprile, Sylvie (ed.): Banished. Traveling the Roads of Exile in Nineteenth-Century Europe. Berlin, Boston, 2022, 175-204, 176. []
  2. Ibid., 176-179. []
  3. Ibid., 181-182. []
  4. Ibid., 182-183 and 193-194. []
  5. Lutz, Helma: Care: An intersectional analysis of transnational care work and transnational families, in: Amelina, Anna / Lutz, Helma: Gender and Migration. Transnational and Intersectional Prospects. New York, 2019, 59-82, 64. []
  6. Ibid., 64-65. []
  7. Aprile et al. 2022, 181. []
  8. Lutz 2019, 64-65. []
  9. Ibid., 66. []
  10. Ibid., 82. []
  11. Aprile et al. 2022, 182. []
  12. Ibid. []
  13. Ibid., 183. []
  14. Lutz 2019, 66. []
  15. Ibid., 76. []
  16. Ibid., 66-71. []
  17. Aprile et al. 2022, 183. []
  18. Ibid., 186. []
  19. Ibid., 189. []
  20. Lutz 2019, 64. []
  21. Aprile et al. 2022, 194. []
  22. Lutz 2019, 81. []
  23. Aprile et al. 2022, 199. []
  24. Lutz 2019, 67. []
  25. Ibid., 76. []

OpenEdition schlägt Ihnen vor, diesen Beitrag wie folgt zu zitieren:
Nadine Dunja Franziska Baba (26. September 2025). Making Women’s Migration (In)Visible: A Comparative Perspective on the 19th and 21st Centuries. Migration and Belonging. Abgerufen am 7. Februar 2026 von https://doi.org/10.58079/14rbp


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