Paper short abstract:

The main purpose of this talk is to bring into light the role that women have played within migrant families with regard to care work.

Paper long abstract:

This main purpose this talk has actually splits into two aims: I want to answer these two questions: (1) What are the reproductive activities that women are carrying out in migrant families when they stay at the household?; and (2) What happens when these women migrate abroad? I will focus, in particular, in the case of Senegalese migration in Spain. This case reveals some particularities which enrich the theoretical debate on this issue. The reason for this is that Senegalese families display certain features that substantially expand the concept of caring work. These families are extended ones, as a result of polygyny and patrilocality. Furthermore, in these families care work tasks are not reduced to children. The care of parents (and of parents in law, in the case of the wife) is essential in Senegalese culture.

There are still few studies that analyze migratory processes focusing on other than nuclear household structures. My main purpose is precisely to take advantage of some specific features of the Senegalese origin families, like their extended and patrilocal structure, in order to determine their effects on the migratory process, thus contributing to fill this gap in migration theories.