Based on a study of female domestic workers in Delhi, this paper highlights the primary role of women in migration and the survival of family.

Women domestics are found assuming vital functions and roles in migration, the settling-down process and in the search for job.

Women are seen as central in accessing and mobilising social networks, which not only direct the course of migration, but also the survival of the migrant family in the urban milieu. Women, are thus part of the migration systems and subsystems and take up numerous functions. This calls for a re-examination of the validity of some of the widely accepted male-centric analysis in the literature on migration.

NEETHA N, Economic and Political Weekly