The Impact of Female Migration to Middle-East on their Family’s Social and Economic Development

Abstract

As a developing country in the Third World, Sri Lanka pursued foreign employment without any discrimination between men and women to alleviate poverty after the 1977 Open Economic Policy. to lift itself out of poverty. But the traditional woman who worked in the family got rid of it and joined the labor force and went abroad for employment in the Middle East. In such a context the main problem here is to study whether emigration for employment in the Middle East has had a social and economic impact. The main objective of applicable this problem is to identify the household income status of married women before and after going abroad for employment. To achieve these objective, the study was conducted on 100 women migrants based in 45 Grama Niladhari Divisions in the Medirigiriya Divisional Secretariat Division in the Polonnaruwa District, which is a poorest in Sri Lanka. Here a simple random sampling method is used to select the sample from the desired population. Questionnaire method was used to retrieved the data from the sample. Accordingly, this study confirmed that there is a difference between the income status of married women before and after going abroad. That is, their income has increased with the emigration. Therefore, better results can be achieved by creating local employment opportunities for women or establishing activities to uplift the families and children of women migrant workers.