Introduction

This article analyses how literature on female migration deals with gender issues in Italy and Spain. We assume that the gender system is at the core of female migration in these two Mediterranean countries, being linked to the changes both in native women's positions in family and work, and to the restructuring of persistent asymmetrical power relations between women and men. We have selected titles which are relevant to our topic from a large corpus of academic studies, reports issued by governments and international organisations, papers produced in the frame of EU Commission research programmes, particularly those concerning trafficking, ‘militant’ publications by associations and NGOs, and life stories (biographical narrations collected with various methodologies or autobiographies). Our goal was not to give an exhaustive picture of studies on female migration in Italy and Spain, but rather to raise some questions that are relevant to female migration and gender equality in the two countries, particularly in Italy where a regression towards female subordination in work, society and public image is more than evident.

Female migration in the global world and the Mediterranean model

In the last twenty-five years female migration, which is certainly a historical phenomenon dating back at least to the nineteenth century, has increased worldwide, and drawn the attention of several international organisations (United Nations, ILO, UNHCR and OECD) (Hondagneau-Sotelo 2003). Conferences, publications and recommendations have followed.