Migration, Household Tasks, and Gender: Evidence from the Republic ofGeorgia 1

We examine whether migration affects the gender division of household tasks andparticipation in leisure within origin-country households using survey data fromthe Republic of Georgia. Our theoretical framework identifies two sets ofmechanisms whereby migration might influence gender differences in homeactivities: migrant experience effects and migrant absence effects. We test forboth types of effects on the probability that men and women perform genderatypical household tasks and engage in leisure activities by comparinghouseholds with and without currently absent and return migrants using probitregressions. We find evidence for both migration absence and migrationexperience effects on gender differences in housework and leisure. However,these effects are complex and contradictory: Generally, male migration tends toexacerbate gender differences in the sending household while female migrationtends to ameliorate them.