ILO Brief

Gender-sensitive reporting and communication on labour migration

Stories about “migrants” tend to not capture gender-related disparities and the specific challenges that women or men can face in their labour migration experiences, this brief explores how journalists and communicators can introduce a gender-sensitive approach to their work.

While women are equally represented in the overall population, they only represent 41.5 per cent of international migrant workers. A proportion which has been stable over the past years. This situation can be explained by the under-representation of women among international migrants of working age and their lower labour force participation. Several additional factors have been suggested as well: women are more likely to migrate as an accompanying family member and face additional economic or non-economic obstacles in their access to the labour market.
Data at the regional level suggest strong differences from region to region. In Northern, Southern and Western Europe, there are slightly more women international migrant workers than men. On the other hand, in the Arab States, the ratio between women and men international migrant workers is of one to five.

Public debates around labour migration do not always capture these gender-related disparities. Stories about “migrants” tend to be gender neutral and the specific challenges that women or men can face in their labour migration experiences are seldom detailed.
This document explores how journalists and communicators could introduce a gender-sensitive approach to their work on labour migration. The first part of the document studies how gender impacts – positively or negatively - the experiences of international migrant workers. The second part includes a case study on the gender dimension of labour migration reporting in Nepal. The final section of the document provides recommendations for journalists, editors, communicators, and educators.