Frozen and Stalled? Gender and Migration Scholarship in the 21st Century

Gender and migration is a complex relationship, involving dynamic interactions between women and men, embedded in a variety of institutions (families, labor markets, and others) that all vary across different periods of historical time. Although many studies in the field of gender and migration have appeared since the late 1970s, few contemporary migration scholars centrally integrate gender into their work. In 2006, Donato and colleagues called for advancing this field of research. Now, more than a decade later, studies have incorporated various methods and approaches, but despite some momentum, most recent books and articles about migration still do not explicitly integrate gender. In this introduction, we set the stage for research and findings that bridge this gap and appear in this special issue. We preview findings from these studies, suggesting that a gender analytical framework is essential to understanding migration in the 21st century.