# Women migrant workers’ (WMWS) deskilling

## TL;DR

This paper explores how women migrant workers often end up in jobs below their skills due to barriers like lack of recognition and support.

## Contribution

The study highlights the role of gender and ethnicity in labor market segmentation and de-emancipation among women migrant workers.

## Key findings

- Women migrant workers frequently face deskilling due to unacknowledged qualifications and language barriers.
- Gender and ethnicity contribute to labor market disadvantages, pushing women into unskilled jobs.
- Deskilling leads to de-emancipation and downward social mobility for women migrant workers.

## Abstract

Women are key actresses in sending and receiving countries’ developments, and their contributions includes social and financial remittances, education and the transmission of social and cultural values (United Nations, 2006). Despite, women migrants’ undeniable contributions, they too often undergo deskilling, a process defined as the employment of workers in a different field or below their qualifications. The factors influencing deskilling include the lack of recognition of skills and qualifications, difficult access to information and employment opportunities, lack of support in the destination country and linguistic barriers.

Migration can impact the social mobility of women migrants, yet not always positively (Nowicka, 2012). In the labour market, women migrants are generally disadvantaged because of occupational gender segregation, the lack of network support and childcare responsibilities (EU Commission, 2022), with higher risks of deskilling and downward social mobility. The objective of the brief is to shed light on WMWs’ deskilling and explore the impact of gender and ethnicity in labour segmentation, de-emancipation being a consequence of WMWs’ deskilling and overrepresentation in reproductive unskilled jobs.