Female workers abroad now outnumber males

manilatimes.net
Sunday, August 16, 2009

Filipino women now outnumber the men in working and settling abroad.

And the trend is reflected in data from the provinces, according to the Institute for Migration and Development Issues (IMDI).

Citing numbers from the Philippine Overseas Employment Administration (POEA), the institute reported that data on overseas workers from 2004 to 2007 shows that 33 provinces have more female land- and sea-based migrant workers than their male counterparts, compared to 18 provinces that had more male migrant workers than females.

These include all the provinces in the Ilocos region and the Cordillera Administrative Region.

Some 21 other provinces, meanwhile, had years that there were more female migrant workers than males and vice versa—with no clear trend which gender has more migrant workers over the four-year period.

From the provinces

An overwhelming 76 of 78 provinces with data had more female than male emigrants and permanent residents, according to a 27-year dataset on this group of migrants coming from the Commission on Filipinos Overseas (CFO).

Only Aklan and Tawi-Tawi had more male than female permanent residents and emigrants.

The provinces that had more female than male overseas workers and permanent residents come from provinces with high and low poverty incidence levels.

Government data segregates overseas Filipinos as land- and sea-based (the latter is included because the Philippines is the world’s leading supplier of merchant marine fleet).

But looking at total land-based workers per province alone by gender, 73 of 76 provinces with data show that females outnumber male land-based workers.

Only Bataan, Pampanga and Zambales had more male land-based overseas workers than females.

According to the institute, Filipino women workers abroad have contributed “a lot of resources quietly yet visibly, and have helped improve their birth provinces’ quality of life.”

These contributions by overseas Filipinas are “not without a cost,” the institute reported in a policy briefing paper, “since females are vulnerable to human rights abuses.”