Examining the Implications of Men's Immigration on left-behind women in Rural area(Case study: Mashhad county)

Migration is one of the most prevalent and effective social phenomenon that may cause some changes in origin’s population structure, consequently, lead to emerge of socioeconomic changes especially in relation to gender. So, the migration is a gender process naturally. The present research seeks to analyze the consequences of husband’s migration on socioeconomic status of left-behind women in rural areas. The research method is descriptive-analytical and sample size is 289 women in 22 sample villages of Mashhad County who their husband migrated to work. In this study, the examined women were identified by snowball method and participated in completing the questionnaire. The effects of men’s immigration on rural women were evaluated in term of economic and social dimensions with 15 positive and 15 negative effects separately. From the women perspective, the results of paired Sample t-test showed that men’s migration mainly had positive rather than negative effects; as in the social term, the average positive effects of migration of men is 3.26 that significantly more than the average 1.99 of negative effects; and in the economic dimension, the average 2.54 of positive effects were more than the average 2.23 of negative effects. In total, the average 2.88 of positive effects of men migration were more than the average 2.09 of negative effects. This is justified by the predominant type of men’s migration, which is mostly daily, across the mashhad county. The results of variance analysis also showed that the average of negative effects of households with daily migration of husband were 2.06 that this figure was increased to 2.18 in short-term migration and to 2.53 in long-term one. Therefore, if the migration of men from rural areas is daily, it will have a positive effect on the economic and social status of left-behind women in rural areas.