South-South Migration and Discrimination Against Women in Social Institutions: A Two-way Relationship

Using the Social Institutions and Gender Index (SIGI) from the OECD Development Centre, this paper provides evidence on the two-way relationship between discrimination against women in social institutions and South-South migration. On the one hand, discriminatory social institutions in both origin and destination countries are an additional determinant of female migration. On the other hand, migration implies changes in discrimination against women according to the level of gender inequalities at destination. Specifically, migration toward countries with low levels of discrimination promotes gender equality in social institutions at home, while migration toward destinations with high levels of discrimination has the reverse effect.