Female Migration in Lesotho: Determinants and Opportunities

Migration, internal and external, continues to be a dominant livelihood strategy for households in Lesotho, with almost half (43 percent) of households reporting at least one member living away. The past decade has seen a sharp increase in female migration, due to a halt in new hires of Basotho men in South African mines and a concomitant expansion of jobs primarily for women in the export garment sector in Maseru and Maputsoe. This study analyzes female migration using three waves of the Demographic and Health Survey (2004, 2009, and 2014) as well as primary data collected by the research team in March-April 2015. The findings indicate that female migration in Lesotho is primarily driven by economic "push" (rather than "pull" ) factors, often due to shocks to the household, such as job loss, death, or bad crops. Migrants are often seen as "strugglers" and their households of origin are just as poor as rural households with no migrants. Moreover, the study finds conclusive evidence that women's employment in sectors dominated by migrants is strongly correlated with HIV/AIDS: 55 percent of women working in garment factories and 38 percent of domestic workers are HIV positive, as opposed to the national average of 30 percent. These findings point to three policy recommendations to support female migrants and their families: (i) lower the barriers to secondary education in rural areas, (ii) diversify and expand employment opportunities for men and women, and (iii) provide HIV/AIDS prevention and treatment services to garment factory workers as well as migrants working in the informal sector.

Migration, internal and external, continues to be a dominant livelihood strategy for households in Lesotho, with almost half (43 percent) of households reporting at least one member living away. The past decade has seen a sharp increase in female migration, due to a halt in new hires of Basotho men in South African mines and a concomitant expansion of jobs primarily for women in the export garment sector in Maseru and Maputsoe. This study analyzes female migration using three waves of the Demographic and Health Survey (2004, 2009, and 2014) as well as primary data collected by the research team in March-April 2015. The findings indicate that female migration in Lesotho is primarily driven by economic "push" (rather than "pull") factors, often due to shocks to the household, such as job loss, death, or bad crops. Migrants are often seen as "strugglers" and their households of origin are just as poor as rural households with no migrants. Moreover, the study finds conclusive evidence that women's employment in sectors dominated by migrants is strongly correlated with HIV/AIDS: 55 percent of women working in garment factories and 38 percent of domestic workers are HIV positive, as opposed to the national average of 30 percent. These findings point to three policy recommendations to support female migrants and their families: (i) lower the barriers to secondary education in rural areas, (ii) diversify and expand employment opportunities for men and women, and (iii) provide HIV/ AIDS prevention and treatment services to garment factory workers as well as migrants working in the informal sector.
households from poverty "when it is directed outside the country and the migrants are men". 1 Taken together, the conclusion of many rural households is that migration, and female migration in particular, is a "necessary evil", separating women from their families and offering not much more than survival in return.
From the migrants' perspective, a few general patterns emerge. Education is a primary motivation for migrating: younger women migrate after having to drop out because their families can no longer afford secondary school, and older women migrate to support their children's education. Although they tend to move with short-term goals in mind, most stay longer than they wish because their earnings do not allow them to accumulate savings or other assets, and their families grow dependent on their remittances to meet basic needs. A minority of migrants remains in urban areas out of choice (because they have grown used to the higher living standards and independence). Overall they find their working and living arrangements to conform to their expectations: they expect it to be hard work and it is.
In Part II, in light of the overwhelming need for female migration to support rural households, we identify potential entry points for policy to better support the needs of migrant workers, particularly those in two primary employment sectors for women -domestic and textile, and those of their families.
Specifically, we review the challenges faced by workers in five key areas and the opportunities for policy to better support them to obtain quality employment, find low-cost and safe urban housing, protect their health, access financial services, and care for their children.
 Quality employment: Our findings show that, as formal sector workers, textile workers have enjoyed and valued basic labor protections, even though the work still comes with many challenges. Policies to fill the gap left by the conclusion of the Better Work initiative 2 by continuing to improve the working conditions in textile factories as well as supporting migrants working in the informal sector would boost the welfare of workers and their families back home. Despite the recent 10-year extension of AGOA, significant uncertainty regarding Lesotho's continued eligibility in light of political and security challenges remains, as do fears of massive layoffs in the textile industry. Improving the quality of informal employment, where the majority of workers are concentrated, therefore remains critical.
Organizations of informal workers, such as those that exist in South Africa, offer a way to extend some 1 World Bank (2010). 2 The second phase of Better Work (2013)(2014)(2015)(2016) was still ongoing at the time of the data collection in March-April 2015, but has been concluded by the time the report has been published. basic legal representation to informal workers, including domestic workers, even for occupations where formalization is not yet feasible. Such organizations could also serve as a vehicle through which to provide information on informal workers' basic rights. Promoting the diversification of economic opportunities for women into other productive sectors should also be prioritized.
 Living conditions of migrants: Female migrants interviewed for this study value the independence and infrastructure available in Maseru and Maputsoe, but they struggle to find affordable housing in safe neighborhoods that are close to work. Governments around the world respond to heavy influxes of migrants through a variety of urban planning efforts, often in collaboration with employers, but the predominance of female migrants in urban Lesotho raises particular concerns. Improving the safety of neighborhoods where large concentrations of female migrants live, including safe passage corridors, street lights, and increased and more affordable public transportation, could allay security issues. Policy could also prioritize the creation of more affordable housing for both informal and formal workers, enabling women to save and remit as much as possible to their families back home.
The implications of absent wives and mothers further highlight the need for housing policies and programs to focus on facilitating the movement of entire families to urban areas, should women and their families choose to do so.
 HIV response: Previous research has documented the role of migration in fueling the HIV epidemic in Lesotho, which has the second highest prevalence rate (25%) in the world. Textile workers in Lesotho are already well-recognized as an at-risk population (with HIV prevalence of 59%) and have received specialized HIV prevention and response efforts through the Apparel Lesotho Alliance to Fight AIDS (ALAFA). This study makes an important contribution to the research on HIV in Lesotho by applying the methodology of a previous study on HIV and male miners in Lesotho 3 to the case of female migrants. We find that, after controlling for demographic and social factors, both textile and domestic work is significantly associated with HIV status, even after controlling for other factors. In light of ALAFA's recent discontinuation, these findings highlight the urgent need for alternative efforts to recover the gains made in the textile sector and extend the reach of services to migrants in the informal sector as a high-risk population. 3 Corno and de Walque (2012).  Financial inclusion: Our findings highlight the need for accessible financial services for migrants from and within Lesotho. Formal sector employment seems to offer a route to financial inclusion, as textile workers are much more likely to have bank accounts (set up with help from employers) and use savings groups. Two policy recommendations emerge. First, efforts to promote financial inclusion should leverage the fact that migration is so common and use remittances as their entry-point, and should include informal migrant workers as a key underserved population. Lower-cost remittance services, particularly using mobile money technologies, would benefit migrants and their families, although our findings indicate that special efforts may be needed for women to try them out. Second, female migrants could be targeted for specialized financial products to help meet their financial goals, such as financing and saving for children's education.
 Access to secondary education: The challenges associated with accessing education underpin female migration in Lesotho in a number of ways. Respondents interviewed for this study repeatedly emphasized that the reason why Basotho women live apart from their families, and the primary use of their remittances, are children's educational expenses. Schooling also drives where children live: they tend to remain with grandparents in rural areas during primary school, which is fully governmentfunded, but later join their mothers in urban areas where secondary school is more accessible. In light of this, any efforts to improve access to quality education in rural areas, particularly secondary education, would greatly benefit the welfare of migrants and their families and potentially reduce the need for female migration.
The study's findings point to a number of priority areas to support female migrants and their families:  First, the sheer prevalence of migration as a livelihood strategy emphasizes the need for better migration indicators in nationally-representative data. For example, embedding questions on family members living elsewhere and respondents' former residence would allow for tracking of internal and external migration. Annex 1 makes specific and actionable recommendations.
 Second, the study further justifies the need to lower barriers to secondary education particularly in rural areas. The cost of secondary education is both a driver of female migration and consumes a significant portion of the remittances that female migrants are able to send home.
Lowering the cost or otherwise increasing access to secondary education would ease this

Introduction Study Objectives and Rationale
A number of factors make this a compelling moment to study the role of women in economic development in Lesotho. On the surface, Lesotho offers a relatively positive environment for women compared to many countries in Sub-Saharan Africa, with small or nonexistent gender gaps in education and poverty, equal status under the law, and relatively high representation of women in government. However, digging a little deeper reveals a more complex picture. Only in 2006 were women freed from the legal authority of their husbands, through the Legal Capacity of Married Persons Act (LCMPA), and implementation has lagged behind in a cultural environment rooted in patriarchal norms. Rates of maternal mortality and HIV, which affect women at higher rates than men, are persistently high, and opportunities for productive employment are few for both men and women, especially for the bulk of the population in rural areas.
The purpose of this gender study is to explore in depth the role of female migration in Lesotho's economic development. Why female migrants? First, although migration as a livelihood strategy has a long history in Lesotho, it is only in the past 20 years that females have increasingly left their families in search of work, due to a decline in job opportunities for men in the South African mining sector and a concurrent increase in jobs for women textile factories in Lesotho. Despite the large economic and social implications of female migrants replacing males as breadwinners, almost no previous research has explored their experiences or how rural households have adjusted to this trend. Second, female migration is a useful lens through which to explore some of the most pressing development concerns in Lesotho, including employment and HIV.
Since most employment opportunities for Basotho men and women involve migration, which in turn is a known driver of HIV, it is essential to consider the motivations, needs, and challenges of migrants when designing development policies around jobs and health.
The overarching questions for this study are: (i) What are the drivers of female migration, from the perspective of households and migrants? After reviewing the patterns of migration in Lesotho today, we examine the perspective of rural households, those that send migrants and those that do not. We also examine the experience of female migrants, highlighting their motivations, intentions, and process of obtaining work. After providing the current context for female migration in Lesotho, we ask (ii) How can policy better adapt to the needs of female migrants and their families to respond to development challenges? In particular, we highlight key areas where, in the context of an increasing preponderance of female migration, policy recommendations might differ from situations with lower levels of migration.
After describing the data and methods used, this study proceeds in two parts. Part I offers an in-depth exploration of the experience of female migrants in the formal sector (using textile workers as an example) and informal (through domestic workers). In Part II, we examine the challenges faced by female migrants in five specific areas, with an eye to understanding how policy can adapt to better serve the needs of migrants and their families: quality of employment, living conditions of migrants, financial inclusion, protection from HIV, and support for migrants' children.

Data and Methodology
This study includes qualitative and quantitative analysis of both primary and secondary data sources. We used existing nationally representative data sources to investigate a number of relevant aspects of female migration, including the determinants of migration, individual and household characteristics, and HIV prevalence among migrants. It included both internal and external migrants and disaggregated among the different occupations of migrants to the extent possible.
Among the nationally-representative data from Lesotho, the Demographic and Health Survey (DHS) provided the most comprehensive information on socio-economic and health indicators at both individual and household levels. Using the most recent wave of the DHS available (DHS 2014), migrants were identified in two ways: (i) the residence status of listed household members, and (ii) whether or not surveyed individuals have undergone at least one trip of three months or longer during the previous 5 years (see Annex 1 for more detailed information). To focus our analysis on labor migration, only a subsample of individuals who traveled for work 4 was retained as our base specification. The DHS was also particularly appropriate for the analysis of migrants' vulnerability to HIV infection, because it contains HIV test results that can be merged with socio-demographic and health data collected in the individual questionnaires. Based on the methodology employed by a previous study, 5 we conducted multivariate regression analysis to estimate the effect of working in predominantly migrant occupations on the probability of being HIV positive.

11
The analysis of DHS data was complemented and cross-checked with the 2010/2011 wave of the Household and Budget Survey (HBS), administered quarterly by Lesotho's Bureau of Statistics. Data on financial inclusion was obtained from the 2011 Global Findex database.
However, the range of analyses that were feasible using existing nationally representative data was limited, especially because of restrictions in how data on migrants are collected in these surveys. 6 To complement the available data sources, we conducted fieldwork to collect primary data in March-April 2015 in Lesotho. Utilizing a mixed methods approach, this fieldwork focused on female migrants engaged in formal (textile) and informal (domestic) sectors, and their sending households and communities. With the assistance from nine local research assistants, the mission undertook (i) a survey with 210 female migrants, (ii) seven in-depth, semi-structured, interviews with selected migrant women, as well as five of these women's family households in rural sending communities, (iii) four urban focus group discussions with migrants, and (iv) six focus group discussions with women and men from sending communities.
First, the survey included 210 female migrants in urban Maseru and Maputsoe: 103 textile workers, most of whom worked at three selected factories of varying size and ownership, and 107 domestic workers from four neighborhoods of diverse income levels located throughout urban Maseru. Two cases were ultimately dropped from analyses based on their migration and current work status, resulting in a working sample of 208 female migrants. Concurrent with the structured interview, we conducted four separate focus group discussions with textile and domestic workers: one group consisted of two domestic workers and three groups consisted of 8 to 11 textile workers. Details on factory and neighborhood selection and sampling of workers are provided in Annex 2. which, in the absence of local economic opportunities, continue to involve migration. Notably, the decline in mining jobs for men has coincided with a growing stream of female migrants seeking employment in export garment factories in urban Lesotho (see Figure 1). Fostered by a preferential trade agreement with the United States under the African Growth and Opportunity Act (AGOA), the textile sector has become the single largest formal employer in Lesotho, providing 39,000 jobs in 2011 and up to 50,000 jobs at its peak in the mid-2000s. 11 Despite dominating this area of employment -90 percent of textile workers are women -the majority of female migrants still end up working informally in domestic service or as street vendors, and even those employed in textile factories face a high level of insecurity and often bounce between the formal and informal sectors. These figures highlight an unforeseen consequence of male migrants' retrenchment from the mines: Basotho women are increasingly compelled to migrate in order to support their families, but they are limited to less stable and lower-paying income opportunities than the mining jobs formerly held by the male migrants.
8 World Bank (1995), citing 1986 Lesotho census. 9 Boehm (2003). 10 Interview with Head of Lesotho Office, National Union of Mineworkers (NUM), Maseru, January 2009 (Crush et al., 2010). 11 UNCTAD (2012). Mines and Lesotho Garment Factories, 1990-2006(Crush et al., 2010 Despite the fact that an increasing share of women are now the main providers of income for their households, their migration experiences are significantly different from men's. Importantly, women are less likely than men to engage in cross-border migration. Although the share of Basotho women residing in South Africa has doubled over the last decade, from 4% in 2004 to 8% in 2014, they remain almost half as likely than men to do so (14% in 2014). Moreover, whereas men have largely kept their jobs as mineworkers, women tend to work in the informal sector, mostly in domestic service (50%), small trade (9%) or commercial agriculture (5%) (Crush et al., 2010). The informality of women's work opportunities in South Africa is a source of risk, since unregistered migrants can be arrested or deported and are often forced to spend a large part of their income on bribes when crossing the border. 12 The decline in mining jobs for men and the relative difficulty for women to work in South Africa led to a spike in internal migration from 2004 to 2009, which has largely been maintained in 2014. As internal migration has become the dominant livelihood strategy in Lesotho, Basotho men and women moving to urban areas tend to migrate individually, leaving their families behind, hence reproducing the historical migratory patterns of cross-border miners. While half of the migrants are young and unmarried (see Table   2 below), approximately a third of both male (39%) and female migrants (34%) are married. Interviews conducted for this report revealed that people are often motivated to move away for work in order to cover education costs and other basic needs for their dependents. The responsibility to provide for children is particularly salient for women, 13% of whom are widowed, divorced or separated, and therefore the sole caretakers. Notwithstanding the significant economic benefits of migration, segregated migration patterns of men and women have altered the social fabric of Lesotho, with detrimental effects on health, family structures, and the institution of marriage.

Determinants of migration
The results of our fieldwork indicate that female migration in Lesotho is primarily driven by economic "push" factors, often due to shocks to the family household, such as job loss, death, or bad crops, rather than "pull" factors. These push factors are closely linked with overall economic circumstances in rural Lesotho and many households' existing dependence on remittances.
Livelihoods in rural Lesotho typically revolve around subsistence agriculture. Outside of farming, local work consists of odd, piecemeal jobs that are inconsistent and pay little. For most families, however, this is not enough. They struggle to feed their families and keep their children in school, much less pay for major expenses or recover from economic shocks. Given limited local options, most households look to employment options outside their village. Rural communities understand these opportunities to vary by sector, location, salary, and stability. Rural households previously opted to send males away for work and often to the mines in South Africa. This is in part due to historically patriarchal norms, and in part because these jobs are seen to be the most lucrative and attractive: they pay the best and are more stable and longer-term than other "male" jobs, such as in construction or agriculture, which tend to be project-based and/or seasonal. Given Lesotho's historical gender norms and work opportunities, rural communities understand "migration" as being mostly to South Africa and being done by males. However, in response to retrenchment from the mines, or men becoming ill and returning home, households send other members away for work both to recover from lost remittances, and to diversify their sources of income.
Consistent with the nationally-representative data, rural communities understand job prospects to be moving more in favor of women: domestic work is in high demand both in South Africa and urban Lesotho and textile jobs are now perceived to be easier to get than mining or construction jobs. In contrast to male migration to South Africa, communities understand internal moves for work -typically for factory or domestic work -as mostly done by females. While our sample of migrants is small, our survey data also evidence the shift toward female migration: at the time they first moved for work, almost one-fourth of respondents experienced household job loss, the majority of which belonged to males (77 percent), and one-third experienced a death in the family, also the majority of whom were male (67 percent). However, female migrants also move in response to other household shocks: 28 percent of respondents experienced a major crop or livestock loss at the time they first moved away for work.
Education is another important "push factor" linked to female migration, although it operates differently for younger and older women. First, primarily for younger women, dropping out of school due to lack of finances serves as an impetus to move. Many migrants reported dropping out of school because their parents or siblings could no longer afford their school fees. It is often after that, and related to the household's inability to pay, that women move for work. These women also find that, since they are no longer in school, they are a burden to an already financially strapped household. Second, for older women, education is linked to the purpose of migration, as children's school fees and related expenses are key motivating push factors and serve as a priority for women's remittances.
Overall, these "push" factors -death, job loss, crop failures, and education -are the main drivers of female migration in Lesotho. "Pull" factors are not as important, although established personal networks ease and expedite the process, and in rare cases start it. This is discussed in more detail below.

Perceptions of migration
Rural communities generally understand "migration" to apply to those crossing international boundaries; they do not often use the term "migrant" for those who move internally, most likely due to Lesotho's history of male migration to South African mines. They have different terms for migrants based on the work they do, "Some are called 'Mapetoria' (Pretorians), others are just called 'Mamaenara' (Miners), others are called 'Makhomosha' (vendors) and women are called 'Makitjikitji' (Kitchen girls)"; "'ma weekend', Weekenders, that is people who come home on a weekly basis". Despite the different names, the most commonly used term sums up the harsh reality in which communities see these migrants to be living: "Baitsokoli": strugglers. "We call them that because some will go out and find little jobs to sustain their lives".
Rural perceptions of migration are overwhelmingly negative: many understand migrants to be those who move away and come home just to die from illness. Older, hardened perceptions most likely stem from males returning from South Africa and dying from HIV, or disabled and very ill. More recent perceptions 19 have grown to include female migrants' working conditions: how little they are paid and how exploited they are. They believe that textile workers are insulted and oppressed by their Chinese employers; they work in very cold conditions and inhale dangerous chemicals; witchcraft sometimes happens among factory workers trying to vie for better positions; and "thugs" in urban areas steal from them. They also believe domestic workers are sexually harassed by their female bosses' husbands; they are treated "like slaves", working from dawn until dusk; and paid very poorly. Overall, rural communities understand the work that migrant women do to be in extremely harsh conditions and for women to be vulnerable and cheated by men. not usually face those challenges. Women do not even go home often, so it is highly probable they will engage in other extra affairs". In contrast, some rural women see migrant women as engaging in extramarital relations out of spite ("Men will start and women will revenge on them by also doing the same"; "Women do engage in extra relationships if their husbands do not give them attention any more") but also due to a newly enjoyed freedom. Perceptions were also sector-specific: textile workers are often seen as "promiscuous, enjoying cohabiting with other men", while domestic workers are rumored to "bring their boyfriends over while their employers are gone" or steal their employers' husbands. People also dismissed women working in South Africa as "acting as a man's wife", living with him and making his home as a way to live more comfortably and supplement their income.

Prevalence and necessity of migration
A brief look at the national data shows that despite half (43%) of Basotho households reporting at least one member living away, migration tends to be a survival strategy rather than a strategy for creating wealth. Remarkably, rural households with only internal migrants are as poor than households without any migrants: more than a third (32%) of households with members elsewhere in Lesotho are among the poorest, compared to 31% of non-sending ones (see Figure 3). Having migrants in South Africa, however, 20 is associated with a much lower probability of being very poor (17%) and a correspondingly much higher chance of falling into the top two wealth quintiles (31%). Consistent with these findings, an earlier World Bank report also suggested that migration is only effective in sheltering households from poverty when "migration is directed outside the country and the migrants are men." 13 Whether migrants to South Africa are able to remit more money or migrants within Lesotho are moving in response to pre-existing poverty, internal migration seems to be correlated with lower benefits to the sending household. Fieldwork findings are consistent with these data. First, rural communities see migration as a survival strategy, and not a newfound freedom or opportunity for the migrants: they characterize migration as a "necessary evil". As such, most households send a family member away for work. In fact, in the rural communities we visited, it was hard to find non-sending households. Most participants in in-depth interviews and group discussions had either migrated for work themselves or had a member(s) of their household who did. Furthermore, many households that had not sent a member away either plan to do so in the future, or want to but cannot, mostly due to either a lack of financial or social resources to initiate the move, or the absence of an able-bodied adult household member.
Second, even with remittances, households that send internal migrants are struggling financially and, critically, are not seen as better off. Communities see small differences around big holidays and the times the migrant comes home to visit, when they bring foodstuffs and other small goods and cash; the rest of the time, however, these households are struggling as much as others. More specifically, they see female 13 World Bank (2010). migrant households as largely just getting by, with few major improvements to their homes or other big investments. Interviewers found that the case study families are destitute, with multiple people living in huts with one room. "The money is too little. They have a lot to cover such as rent where they are staying.
They also have personal needs to address. So it is difficult to share the money, which they earn between the two families. Those people struggle. We feel for them," a rural woman stated. Many migrant families and rural communities in general do not see these households as living much different than other households: "There is really no difference, that is why other family members would leave home too and go and work in South-Africa. Even if one may count the families in this community who have some of their families working, we all look the same, they are still struggling to put bread on the table", a rural man noted. Overall, rural communities in our study came to the same conclusion: most migrants do not make enough money for the hard and rough work and treatment to be worth it.
Fieldwork also confirmed that people in rural communities only perceive real changes in household quality and wellbeing when a family has a male working in the mines: "The major difference can only be seen in a family where the member, often men, is working in the mines in South Africa," rural man. However, households with female migrants do acknowledge their basic needs are met, which might not have been the case otherwise: "There is a huge difference now, now I can afford to pay for my sibling's schools fees", textile worker; "It is still the same except now that I can afford certain things; I am not a beggar anymore", textile case study; "I gain a lot of good things from it. I go to doctors, buy clothes for myself and buy food from the money that she sends me", sending household; "There is only a little difference that we see because unlike the first instance when everyone was crowded in one house, you find that now that one person is ensuring that everyone is at least getting food, electricity and clothes, soap and Vaseline," rural woman.

Where to move
If perceived risks and challenges do influence the migration decision, it is in the destination: South Africa comes with higher pay, but also daunting paperwork, fears of human trafficking, higher upfront costs, and increased risk, as many cross the border illegally. The costs and benefits of moving to South Africa are well known among rural communities, with many sharing stories of individuals being trapped at the border and paying large sums to return to Lesotho after overstaying their Visa: "Those that work in South Africa say they get trapped in places where they cannot move out without their bosses' consent. Their passports are kept by the employer and they are only released when they are deported to Lesotho. In most cases, they do not get paid for jobs they have carried out", rural woman. "For those who work in South-Africa, most of them do not have visas or work permits so with the little that they have, they spend it extending their stay through taking their passports to and from the boarder gate which is more money", rural man.
Others tell of men who were handed over to authorities by their employers after months of work, without pay. Still, for some, the higher pay offsets the risks and for those who can, go: "It has reasons, those who go to Maseru usually cannot afford to go to South-Africa and those who go to South-Africa are those who look for increased salaries", rural man.

Whom to send
Given the fact that most households still need and depend on remittances, rural communities have mixed feelings about whom exactly they should send. As stated above, households generally prefer to send males away for work first, due to historically patriarchal norms and the higher salaries that mining jobs offer. Rural men hold on to this preference more strongly than women do: they feel women should be home caring for children and keeping the house: "Well, a man because it is our culture. Women should look after the children; the family depends on them to improve", rural man; their masculinity is still very much wrapped up in their ability to provide for their family. However, they acknowledge this is changing: "Men and women should discuss things and both have inputs but to be honest women are more listened to when they have been working and bringing money home. It is a thing we grew up with as men, knowing that a woman is inferior", rural man.
Women, however, are split on this: they agree that women are better at raising the children (and thus men should be those moving away for work), but also believe that women are more honest and dependable when it comes to sending money home. Women in rural areas think migrant men spend their earnings on themselves -other women and alcohol -and fail to remit as much money home as they can: "Women leave because men are not sensitive to children's needs like women. Men do get jobs but they do not bring anything back and 'woman would not do that.' Even though women earn little, they also remember those they have left behind. Men get married wherever they are"; "A woman makes a huge difference in the family when she works but when a man does, it is a problem. Men do not often bring money home, they support women whom they fall in love with at their new jobs". On the other hand, rural women worry that the money that working women send home is misspent by men in the family household, although this did not come up with migrants themselves.
Lastly, many understand a mother being away from her children to be an important issue. Household heads, rural community members, and migrants themselves all talk about how women should not be away from their children, and that children who do not have their mothers at home behave badly. With their mothers gone, many felt that fathers were inadequate caretakers of children, misspending remittances or not making sure the children go to school or stay in line, and that children are vulnerable to others ("neighbors take of the children"; "if a girl is left behind, one gets worried as to who they engage with sexually and if the boys are left, you worry who they bring home"). The community knows the household needs the money, but thinks it is not ideal the woman/mother has to move away. In this case, many have conflicting views on women moving for work: they mostly think men should move, but believe men are more careless and selfish in their remittances while women send more of their income home. At the same time, women earn less (and thus send less home) but also take better care of the children. Ultimately, rural communities agree that, while it is preferable for a man to migrate for work, families must accept whatever jobs they can find ("Daughter? To be honest, I would not like it but I would have to accept it because we are driven to go out and find work away from home by difficult circumstances in our villages", non-sending rural household).

Impact on family structure
Given the (perceived) consequences for migrants' children, women experience stress over whether their children are being properly cared for, whether in daycare in urban areas or with extended family in rural areas: "We really fear for our children's safety, we struggle to find the right people to look after them.
Sometimes family members have other things to do, they may leave the children unattended and unsupervised. My children are currently living with my uncle because he was the only person I could trust", domestic worker; "It affects us more because sometimes the people we leave our children with are not the people we trust", textile worker. Given the evolving nature of the institution of marriage (see Box 1), spouses are not necessarily available to care for children when women migrate. When possible, women prefer to leave their children with their parents -typically mothers, since fathers are more likely to have died, and typically their own parents rather than in-laws, also due to increasing marital dissolutionbecause they are trustworthy and have their children's best interests in mind. These grandmothers tend to be the heads of intergenerational households and serve as a sort of rural base for their children and grandchildren.
The children left behind with grandmothers are often living in very precarious situations. Grandmothers report various difficulties in caring for children, often a large number of them, on top of many of them being disabled or having difficulty caring even for themselves: "We grandmothers take care of them. We struggle along with them"; "They return with the children and it becomes our responsibilities"; "One of my granddaughters is actually delinquent and she is moving about all over and making babies". Those 24 elderly women heading the sending households interviewed had various health ailments: one had high blood pressure and visited a clinic regularly for medicine, one reported falling ill and having to leave her job, and another was losing her eyesight due to sugar diabetes.
On top of physical limitations, these women tend to head large households with inconsistent and insufficient funds. Those that can, brew beer to sell locally, although this is not lucrative and one noted the risks involved and stopped brewing: "People would start fighting when they got drunk and I did not want any trouble because of that." In many cases, the fathers of their migrant daughters' children are absent: "[the fathers] are not around; some of them neglect their children. All they do is make children and pass by". Interviewers were surprised by how little farming the rural households were engaged in, whether due to a lack of able bodies, climate change, or low agricultural productivity overall. A surprising number of households rely solely on migrants' remittances and old-age pensions of grandparents living in the family household. 14 Instead, most case studies were the main breadwinners of their family households. However, remittances are often inconsistent: "My daughters are the ones that buy me gas when they want to"; "They do it randomly, it all depends on who is able to send me money". The grandmother of an unmarried domestic worker details the uncertainty: "What gets to me is my son's [case study's father] working in South Africa as a miner because he barely helps with the children and I have no one to seek help from. He knows very well the burden he has left me with of taking care of his children.
He does not come home often and does not even send money regularly. He does not help much in the household necessities." Further, remittances only cover education costs and basic needs: "I would die [if she stopped remitting], I depend on her alone, I would be really affected." One sending household even reported being unable to feed children outside of breakfast: "I cannot afford [children's lunch boxes].
They eat breakfast at home and that will be it. They will eat at school when every child is fed at lunch hour." 14 According to HBS 2013/2014, Q3, while 15% of households receive an average of M503 per month in old age pensions from the government, only people older than 70 are eligible to receive them. Rural households receiving old-age pensions are nevertheless less likely to report having a member move away over the past 12 months. Among rural households, 19% of those without any members who moved away recently report receiving old-age pension, compared to only 16% of those with recent internal migrants. The HBS data do not enable us to identify longer-term migrants however.

The Perspective of Female Migrants
Based on our fieldwork, we characterize two groups of women who tend to move to urban areas for work in Lesotho. One group consists of slightly older women (25-40 years) with children who move in order to support them. For these women, some shock usually occurred to motivate their move: she never married and her parents cannot provide for her and her children, her husband left and did not return, they separated (or, less common, divorced), he died, he lost his job, or the household had a bad crop or property stolen. These women are more likely to start in or transition into textile work. A second group consists of younger, unmarried women (15-30 years) who drop out of school because they or their families can no longer afford the fees, which is often due to job loss or a death in the family, or they finish school and find their parents can no longer support them. They understand themselves to be financial burdens on their parents and move to try to support themselves and their families. They tend

Box 1: Migrants and marriage in Lesotho
Marriage remains common: 64 percent of our survey sample has been married at least once, and of those, 89% are married under customary law only, 6% both customary and civil law, and 5% civil law only (refer to Table 1). However, qualitative work suggests that the institution is changing. First, it points to high rates of infidelity, and with it some level of acceptance for this and having multiple partners in general (although still frowned upon). Marital dissolution is increasingly common: "I think it is all the same, these children all return home from failed marriages," rural women, and marriage overall fragile: "A man can still separate from you when you live together so distance does not matter. When a man no longer loves you, you have to accept it because there is nothing you can do about it. Even if you worked hard and gave him money at the end of the month, once he does not love you it is over", textile worker. Divorce is not very common, in part because it involves extended family in rural areas. Instead, couples separate and men (re)marry. Second, migrant women are choosing not to remarry after divorce or becoming widowed. Instead, they value their independence too much, and some even left less-thanideal circumstances with spouses to move in the first place.
One of our key hypotheses going into this study regarded how having females living and working away from home influences marital dynamics. Although we probed on this specifically, we did not find female migration to have any major impact on bargaining power with their husbands -a finding consistent with one of the few studies that has investigated the topic (Chaka, 2011). Rather, women often buy goods themselves for their families in urban areas to bring home to their families, talk with the family household on how to spend the money, or willingly give the family household complete control over the money (as a "gift"). There is little room for flexibility in how money is spent anyways: any money earned goes to covering basic expenses and school costs. Still, women reported a high degree of control and no conflict over financial decisions in both their current and their family household, and over their personal income as well. And while not directly assessed, women did not bring up the issue of gender-based violence during any of our qualitative work.

26
to move for domestic work because this work has no minimum age restriction and demands little experience and education.

The experience of textile workers
Female migrants working in the textile industry in Maseru/Maputsoe tend to be mothers who move in order to support their children. Textile workers in our survey were on average 32 years old with 1.6 children. Eighty-seven percent were mothers. Almost 25 percent experienced a loss of employment in the household at the time they first moved for work (of these, nearly 40 percent was her husband, 27 percent her father, and 14 percent her brother). Forty percent experienced a death in the family: 15 percent a husband and more than half of these women had a parent die. Thirty-four percent experienced a major crop or livestock loss.
Overall, textile workers' experiences are marked by the more formal nature of their employment: contracts, legal representation, and benefits provide them greater flexibility and more independence than other sectors would. This formality is linked to their intentions to stay in urban areas, the processes of finding and starting a job, and their work trajectories and future plans. It is also related to textile workers' general experiences living and working away from home, which involves increased financial and personal freedoms, and new challenges as well. These pros and cons are discussed in more detail in Part II.
Textile workers tend to move with short-term goals in mind: paying for their children's education, related fees, or helping their family household. However, they often end up staying longer than expected. Once they move for work, these women appear to take one of three different paths. One, they realize how little money they are able to earn and save, spending most of their money on living expenses and remitting what they can. What they send home does not go very far, covering school fees, some food, and other basic necessities. Unless the household has other sources of income, it becomes dependent on their remittances, making it hard for the woman to leave the job. Two, the woman does not leave the job, but in fact is retrenched. Three, the woman continues sending money, but actually chooses not to move back home. It seems this group is torn, and is often comprised of those women with no or few kids residing in the family household: they grow accustomed to the urban lifestyle and, while they miss their families, do not want that quality of life again. Rather, they enjoy electricity and their independence, even if life is hard and more expensive: "We want to start over here, we are now used to electricity and the city life.
Life in the rural is hard, here things are improved".

27
Among survey respondents, textile workers have been working for an average of 8.3 years in the industry, with their current employer for an average of 5.5 years, and living and working away from home overall for an average of 10. One-third has had other paid work away from home, more than half of which was domestic work. Eight percent has previously worked in South Africa, almost all of which was in the domestic sector.
When it comes to where to move, textile workers are drawn to a specific location (e.g., Maseru or Maputsoe) because they have a family member or friend already living there with whom they can live while they search for a job and then their own place to rent. About 60 percent of textile workers learned about their job through family or friends. Personal connections do not help in getting a job at a particular factory, but can help in navigating a new city and affording the move by providing temporary housing, and perhaps addressing some of the potential migrant's concerns prior to migration. Another factor is distance from home and ability to visit family easily. For those who can, many women choose a particular city based on distance from their family household: "Some people indicate that Maseru is too far so they prefer to go to Maputsoe as it is closer to home", rural woman.
Most textile workers do not have a job prior to moving (12 percent did), but rather move to where they know someone, then wait outside factory gates until they get a job. Almost all textile workers surveyed -93 percent -applied for their job by waiting outside the factory gate, which can take time. Women waited an average of 36 days to apply for their current job, with one waiting an entire year. Getting hired at a factory for the first time is seen to involve a bit of luck. Many factories seek some experience so they do not have to train workers, and the supply of women looking for work is deep. Once in the garment industry, however, women feel that their employability increases with work experience and on-the-job training.
Textile workers generally sign a contract: 92 percent of textile survey respondents did, and most of those who did not reported being casual employees (still on probation). However, many women do not know the terms of the contract, such as employment duration or sick and maternity leave, and perceive the terms to be non-negotiable anyways. For those who (think they) do know the terms, their understandings of these rules and regulations vary widely. They report that contracts last anywhere between one month and four years. Most telling is that contracts are in English. At best, someone in Human Resources goes Case Study 1: "Lerato", textile worker Among the 208 workers interviewed for this study, the research team identified a small subset for further investigation. For these "case studies", the team conducted detailed semi-structured interviews with the migrant and then visited their family household to get both sides of the migration story. The following is one such case study.
"Lerato" is a 35 year-old widow with two children. When her husband, a contractor, died, they had long been separated and, according to her mother, "his family did not accept [her] as their daughter anymore.
[She] had to go back home because the marriage had not been legitimized according to the law." Shortly thereafter she decided independently to move away for work, recognizing her family's struggles to cover their basic needs. She has been living and working away from her family household as a textile worker at the same factory in Maseru since she left home ten years ago. When she first moved, she did not have a job lined up but had heard of the opportunity through her sister. Despite hearing rumors that "textile workers become sick and die from tuberculosis and HIV", she moved to Maseru out of necessity and "because there was no other job [she] could do since [she] [was] not educated." She borrowed money from her sister, who also worked in the textile industry, and spent M60 on transportation and M400 on setting up her new home. She got her current job after waiting only one day at the gate, although acknowledges that it is difficult to find work without qualifications. After a 6-month probation period, she signed a non-negotiable 12-month contract that has since been renewed. Overall, she is unsatisfied with her job and would not recommend it, although thinks she will still be living and working away from her family in five years doing similar work. Her mother believes she would move to South Africa for the higher pay, but thinks Lerato "is afraid she would get arrested because she does not have a work permit". Ideally, she would be living closer to her family and sewing her own work because she "loves being independent".
Lerato has two children, one who lives with her and goes to school in Maseru (a 15 year old daughter) and one younger daughter (11 years old) living in her family household with her mother. She visits her family household once a month, traveling by public transportation and paying M94. She has a boyfriend in Maseru -the one partner she has been with since her husband died. She earns M1,128/month. She is the breadwinner of both households and, given her high living expenses in Maseru, she rarely has any money left over at the end of the month ("all that is left is spent on [her] children's needs"). Still, she manages to send money home regularly and save with a stokvel. Despite having a bank account for payment purposes, she prefers stokvels because there are no fees. She remits money through a family member or friend and this money primarily goes toward foodstuffs, children's education and other related expenses. She is a member of a union.
Lerato's family household consists of her mother and her daughter. She has two brothers who live in Bloemfontein and two sisters, one who works in Maseru and one who lives in Mafeteng, near her family household. Her mother is losing her eyesight due to sugar diabetes. She is too young to receive her old age pension, and lives off of Lerato's remittances and any other money her children send home, which is too inconsistent to count on.
29 through the contract with the employees; at worst, they cannot read it in English and employers do not translate the terms into SeSotho, but just tell the women where to sign. Workers do not remember what was in the contract and few, if any, keep their own copy.
Because textile workers tend to have children to support, they do not see going back home as an option.
They tend to stay at a specific factory as long as they can, which is usually determined by the current size and number of orders. When retrenched, women stand outside factory gates until they are hired again or work piecemeal jobs to cover costs in the meantime. When given the hypothetical scenario of retrenchment, few talked about moving home, but rather stressed the need to stay away and find other work given their family's dependence on their remittances: "I would look for another job because my youngest child still needs financial care. He is in a private school... I would go for anything that would get me money"; "Nothing at all, we are hopeless. I would go and look for another factory job". These intentions are also evident in survey data: 70 percent of textile workers expect to be working away from home in five years, almost 65 percent of whom expect to still be working in the textile industry.

The experience of domestic workers
As noted above, the decision of when women move for work is linked to household finances. The first group of female migrants moves to support their children after some household shock. Domestic workers in Maseru generally belong to a second group, which consists of younger women who drop out of school, often also due to household financial challenges. These women tend to migrate because they see moving for work as one of the few opportunities for them to keep busy and to help their family. They choose domestic service because the work does not have an age restriction and demands less education and experience than other sectors. As such, migrant domestic workers are more likely to be single and not have any children. Among survey respondents, domestic workers were on average 30 years old -slightly younger than textile workers -although their age range was quite large: 15 to 73. Almost half were single and less than one-third was married. Almost 40 percent had no children.
Overall, domestic workers' experiences are strongly influenced by the more informal nature of their employment, relative to textile work: they lack contracts, legal representation, and benefits, resulting in little autonomy and greater vulnerability to the personal and professional nature of their specific employer. Like textile workers, this lack of formality is linked to their intentions, the processes of finding and starting a job, and their work trajectories and future plans. The informal nature is also related to their overall migrant experiences, including living and working conditions, financial inclusion, and sexual health, also discussed in Part II.
Similar to their initial motivations, domestic workers' intentions differ from those of textile workers.
Domestic workers are somewhat less likely to see themselves living away from home in five years (57 percent) and only half of those expect to still be domestic workers. That domestic workers are less likely to intend to stay away from home evidences their different reasons for moving: they are less likely to be supporting children back home, and more likely to be young and unattached. As one domestic worker's sending household said, the migrant is "still young and has her whole life ahead of her".
Regarding the decision of where to move, the most important factor is where the jobs are. Unlike textile workers, who move to a specific location where they know someone and then look for a job, domestic workers tend to move for a specific job, which is lined up in advance through personal networks. Almost 85 percent of surveyed domestic workers reported learning about their job through family or friends. They also learn about potential employers through neighbors, pastors, or other community members, as well as over the radio, although this is less common. The majority has a job lined up before moving for work -60 percent of respondents -and many of their employers provide financial assistance for transport to the urban area, with some even picking the domestic worker up in their village. Importantly, few domestic workers sign a contract (less than 3 percent of domestic survey respondents did). Instead, some discuss terms of employment with their employer, although the majority simply accepts work conditions as nonnegotiable expectations of the household head.
Surveyed domestic workers' work patterns and trajectories differ from textile workers: they have lived and worked away from home for an average of 5.8 years, have worked in the domestic sector for 5, and with their current employer for 3, all less than the corresponding averages for textile workers. Similar to textile workers, about 7 percent of domestic workers have worked in South Africa previously. Surprisingly, almost a third of survey domestic workers had previously worked in the textile district in Lesotho prior to their current job, indicating a higher than expected degree of bi-directional movement between these two industries.

Migrants' perceptions and actual experiences
Migrants' perceptions of migration prior to their initial move away for work are very similar to those of rural communities. They had heard that working conditions for female migrants are brutal: women employed in the textile sector work with chemicals and in very cold temperatures, and they are often Case Study 2: "Mateboho", domestic worker "Mateboho" is 19 years old. She is single and has no children. She has completed some secondary school but had to drop out after her mother died. Her father migrated to South Africa for mining work when his first child was born and has since remarried and started another family. He stopped paying Mateboho's school fees when her mother died. In addition to her mother's death, her family experienced crop loss at the time she first moved for work, which was a little under a year ago. Not being able to attend school, she moved in order to support her family, as well as to avoid what she sees as destructive lifestyle choices: "I had just realized a lot of young people in my village do not seem to have self-respect and that they behave in ways I do not like. I wanted to make sure that I do not end up like them … I could not just sit around and do nothing because I did not want to end up doing things that would end up embarrassing my father." Prior to moving, she secured a job as a domestic worker through her grandfather's younger sister, who came and asked Mateboho's grandmother if she had a problem if Mateboho took the job in Maseru. She paid little to move for work, since the employer provided transportation. Overall, she is very satisfied with her job and would recommend it. If she lost her current job, she would stay and look for work: "I would try and find another job because we would struggle like we had been before I came to work in Maseru"; of most importance to her is paying for her younger siblings' education so they can stay in school. She thinks that working in a shop would provide more income for the family household.
Her grandmother also believes that textile work would pay better. Still, she does not think she will be living and working away from home in five years. Instead, she hopes to marry, perhaps her boyfriend from her home village.
She earns M450/month and is paid in cash. She saves M100/month informally and reports sending 20% home through friends, although her grandmother says she does not send money home as regularly.
Her family household consists of her grandmother, who is a widow, and a revolving combination of her own children and grandchildren. She had ten children, but only three are still alive, including Mateboho's father. Mateboho has two brothers, one of whom still lives in the family household and goes to primary school. The grandmother lives mostly with her grandchildren in a household that seems quite fluid: her children often depend on her to care for their children, but she often sends them back to their parents because she "no longer has the capacity and means to provide for them". Importantly, Mateboho's father sends money infrequently and oftentimes not at all; the grandmother instead survives on her old age pension, what little property she has, and the little remittances she receives from Mateboho.
harassed and belittled by Chinese employers. Domestic workers work like "slaves", all day and all night with few breaks and little time to themselves.
Women's actual experiences varied in how they compared to their perceptions prior to moving. Some found their working and living arrangements to not be very different from what they expected -they expected it to be hard work and it is. "I heard nothing good about it to tell the truth, they said it is difficult.
Back then I could not tell what they were talking about but now I see… the hardships of staying here", textile case study. "Paying for everyday needs is stressful because what we earn is little," textile worker.
Some were happy that it was not as bad as they thought it was going to be, although this group consists mostly of domestic workers who have very positive relationships with their employers: "I got good treatment to be honest but I still heard sad stories from other domestic workers about the nasty treatment they endured". A third group, the largest, found living and working away to be tougher than expected or were disappointed that their lives did not improve immediately: "I initially thought my life would change, as well as the lives of my children", textile case study.
Importantly, migrants' needs and ability to support their children and family household outweigh any negative light in which they perceive migration and female migrants in general. While it is not ideal that they live away from their children -and most had a difficult time leaving those behind -female migrants do what they can to make their living and working arrangements tolerable. They tend to accept the conditions because the alternative is always worse: "I think people endure the pain because they know what is at stake when they lose the jobs they have. The problems which they have left back home are much worse than the bad treatment," domestic worker.

Working conditions of textile workers
The results of our fieldwork are consistent with previous reports of textile workers' working conditions. 15,16,17 Commonly experienced workplace problems reported by respondents are verbal abuse and harassment from employers, very cold temperatures, hazardous chemicals and machines, job insecurity if they do not meet their employer's expectations, and poor conditions, including lack of running water and working toilets at times ("when water gets finished at work sometimes we drink from the toilets. They do not let us go home when there is no water"). Twelve percent of textile workers reported being harassed or threatened in the workplace. However, sexual relations between employers and employees appeared to sometimes be linked to promotion or preferential treatment. 18 Qualitative work points to textile workers' vulnerability in such relationships: women enter them as a means to employment benefits, but often suffer worse conditions when the relationship sours or the women do not adhere to the employers' demands. One group noted that such incidences are likely to increase as 15 International Labor Organization. (2013). 16 Pike and Godfrey (2014). 17 They'Daemane, Moses M. M. (2014). 18 Despite explicitly asking about transactional sex in our survey, only 8% of survey respondents reported having sex for money or gifts in the past 12 months. Still, such behavior among female migrants emerged in qualitative work with rural communities and female migrants to be perceived as occurring.

34
"men are increasing in number in the factories and so are women, so there is a high likelihood of it taking place".
Most factories operate at least five days a week, with work on Saturdays as orders demand, and Sundays off. The typical workday is from 7am until 5pm, with the gates closing promptly at 7am. Workers do not earn paid leave except in the case of illness proven with a doctor's note, and hence they hesitate to take any time off. 19 On average, textile respondents are not satisfied with their job (3.3 on 1-5 scale, with 1 being "very satisfied", 3 being "indifferent", and 5 being "very unsatisfied") and are not likely to recommend their job to a family member or close friend back home (3.3 on a 1-4 scale, with 1 being "very likely" and 4 being "not likely at all").

37
In addition, informal work organizations can offer legal representation and support to workers even if formal unionization or collective bargaining are still not feasible. South African Domestic Service and Allied Workers Union (SADSAWU) provides services to domestic workers, including job training and workshops, legal advocacy, mediation, support in cases taken to the Commission for Conciliation, Mediation, and Arbitration (CCMA), counseling concerning domestic workers' rights and legal provisions, campaigning for relevant laws, and providing information. Other organizations also advocate for domestic workers as part of larger work movements, such as Congress of South African Trade Unions (COSATU). Importantly, such organizations could provide information to informal workers on their basic rights even prior to legal representation. While a lack of formal identification cards did not emerge as an issue during fieldwork, many women were unaware of their rights prior to joining a union. This points to migrants' general lack of awareness of existing laws, and highlights the need to inform those workers lacking formal organization. These informational sessions could prove critical in helping informal migrant workers navigate professional landscapes within Lesotho, as well as assist migrants in making more informed and prepared decisions about moving to work in South Africa. Domestic workers noted the value of such a resource, which has since been discontinued: "There was a program on one radio station. It supported domestic workers and we loved the host of the show, we just wished the government would have supported the host. As domestic workers we had a platform to voice out our issues and most employers were trying to improve conditions of work." Third, as a more comprehensive analysis of social and gender issues in Lesotho points out, diversify economic opportunities for women into other productive sectors, such as wool and mohair. 27 This is particularly important given the vulnerability of factory jobs to specific orders and external factors, which may lead to women increasingly moving out of factory work and into the informal sector. While not the focus of this study, the MCC also highlights the need to address continued concerns for women working as cross-border traders.

Living conditions of domestic workers
As mentioned above, most domestic workers live with their employers' families, which comes with both advantages and disadvantages. The advantages are linked to the higher quality of housing they enjoy in 27 LMDA (2015). 38 the employer's home: compared to textile workers they tend to live in larger houses and are more likely to have electricity (80 percent), a tap inside the house (52 percent) or their own flush toilet (38 percent), and to use electricity for heating and cooking. Importantly, they do not have individual living expenses.
The disadvantages are related to the lack of privacy and professional and personal boundaries.
In all, domestic workers seem torn in this arrangement: they are at the same time more satisfied (although not by much) and feel overall safer in their current living quarters than textile workers, but many want to live with their children and, more often, simply have a space of their own: "It is better if they stay on their own, so that they take leave days especially on Sundays and for them to have some personal space", domestic worker. Half of surveyed domestic workers would not change anything about their living arrangement, but the desires of the other half are quite consistent: "sleep with child but wants own space", "want own bedroom", "would prefer to rent elsewhere", "to cook own food", "would love own private space", "not to sleep over", "to live with son", "to live with husband and son", "to live alone".

Living conditions of textile workers
Because they rent their own place, textile workers have a greater range of current living arrangements.
Of those who are monogamously married (37% of our textile sample), 84 percent live with their husband in Maseru/Maputsoe and about 12 percent have husbands living back in the family household. It was rare to have a husband currently working elsewhere within or outside Lesotho (4%); if they were, the women would most likely not have felt the need to move for work herself since her husband's income would cover a significant portion of household costs. Instead, husbands either move to join their wives and work piecemeal jobs when they can, or they make the decision to move to Maseru and find work together. 28 Living arrangements for children are different and are more complicated. Of the textile workers with children -87 percent of our textile sample -72 percent live with at least one biological child in Maseru/Maputsoe. At the same time, 39 percent have at least one biological child living in their family household, usually with the female migrant's parents, and often with nieces and nephews or siblings as well. Of the textile workers with children residing in their family home, only 6 percent live with their inlaws (2 cases) in the family household, one case in which the husband also resided with them.

39
The 63% of textile workers who do not live with spouses often live with sisters, nieces, and nephews in Maseru/Maputsoe, although this tends to be temporary until they can afford their own place. Some cohabitate with boyfriends and few live with domestic workers (working for them), although these arrangements are not common.
Like domestic workers, the overall living conditions for textile workers come with pros and cons. Living in the city is expensive, so although textile jobs pay a lot more than domestic work (around M1,200 per month compared to M550 for those in our sample), after paying for living expenses, the take-home pay of textile workers is not much more than domestic workers. Textile workers also struggle to find affordable housing in a safe neighborhood that is close to work. They feel vulnerable to unfair and undependable landlords, are scared of being robbed by thugs and taken advantage of by men: "Yes, I was afraid of the thugs (tycoons) here in Maputsoe, I did not sleep well at night"; "There are many thugs here in Maputsoe and they keep increasing in numbers. They have tactics they use to rob people. They steal many things but the police really do not help", textile workers). Many feel unsafe walking to and from work in the dark (75% walk to work, often to save money), which is often the case because of their long working hours ("It the same, we go to work in the early hours of morning and it is then that we are mugged, even in the evening hours when we get back from work we come across problems", textile worker). The average commute is 35 minutes, but takes up to two hours for some. Still, textile workers highly value their independence of living on their own terms ("No, we have our own places now; we are independent, which is something you cannot do while you are a domestic worker because you cannot do as you please").
What can be done? Migrants are a particularly vulnerable population when it comes to securing safe and affordable housing. This is in part because they are by definition living away from their place of origin, often lacking the local knowledge and networks relative to natives necessary to navigate housing markets.
Labor migrants are also often unskilled and earn low wages, severely limiting their housing options to those accommodations within their budget. Finally, responding to low-skilled labor demands, influxes of migrants often outpace urban growth and put tremendous stress on local infrastructure. It is then no surprise that housing challenges in heavy migrant-receiving areas exist worldwide.
Policies to address migrants' housing challenges vary and can be based on coordination efforts between local government and sectors of employment. For example, Nepalese migrants, who tend to be men working in construction or security, are highly segregated from local life in Doha, Qatar. They live in industrial labor camps on the fringes of the city, 29 where employers provide affordable housing and transportation to and from work. While these barrack-style conditions are at times highly criticized by international agencies, cheap housing and a lack of transportation costs maximize migrants' take-home pay and remittances. Singapore also receives a lot of semi-or low-skilled migrants working in manufacturing, construction, and domestic services. Numerous policies have addressed housing for foreign workers, including housing market regulations conforming to statutory security requirements and promoting greater employer initiatives to provide better accommodation facilities for migrant workers, including dormitories, hostels, and apartments. 30 These regulations ensure some minimum expectation of safety and quality for migrants. Last, rural-urban migrant housing in China is highly linked with formal employment and social welfare, with the household registration system regulating residential markets.
Migrant-housing complexes managed by sub-district and township agencies are becoming increasingly available for internal migrants excluded by the household registration system's regulations. 31 The World Bank has also been working with local employers to improve living conditions for migrant workers. 32 The fact that such a large proportion of female workers live on their own or with other women provides a unique perspective for urban development. Elements of such policies discussed above can address the particular needs of internal migrants in Lesotho, emphasizing safety and affordability. Working with the LNDC and/or factories, policies could work to improve the safety of neighborhoods where large concentrations of female migrants live, including safe passage corridors, street lights, and increased and more affordable public transportation. Policy could also prioritize the creation of more affordable housing for both informal and formal workers, enabling women to save and remit as much as possible through safe and low-cost housing options.
When designing housing policies, it is further important to consider the broader context in which these women are moving away for work: their intentions to stay are not constant, but change over time, and family members are often split between two households, moving between them based on available resources and age-specific needs. That migrants' and their families' plans and circumstances evolve over time, particularly when considering those concerning their children, highlights the need for migrant housing policies and programs to facilitate the movement of families should they choose to do so. The reality that the internal female migrant population in urban Maseru is increasing, with many of them living independently or with their children, is a real policy concern. 29 Brusle (2012). 30 http://www.mom.gov.sg/passes-and-permits/work-permit-for-foreign-worker. 31 Wu. (2002). 32 http://www.worldbank.org/en/news/feature/2013/07/22/providing-services-to-rural-migrant-workers-in-china.

Vulnerability to HIV/AIDS
Migrants are more vulnerable than non-migrants to HIV infection, partly because they are more likely to engage in multiple and concurrent partnerships (MCPs). Qualitative work suggests that female migrants are seen as particularly vulnerable: "Yes I do believe that [female migrants] are at risk of HIV. This is because sometimes these boys cheat us and take out condoms whilst we are not aware during sexual intercourse and that is how HIV is transmitted"; "I believe this to be true and that women living and working away from their family are in danger because sometimes women get into romantic relationships just because we cannot afford the things we desire or need"; "Women [are more at risk] because more often, men trick them into getting in bed with them and they are mostly abused sexually." Nationally representative data evidence migrants' higher risk as well. While average HIV prevalence is 25 percent (second highest in the world), it is much higher for migrant-dominated occupations: 38 percent of male miners and 58 percent and 38 percent of female textile and domestic workers, respectively, are HIV positive (see Figure 5). Two main reasons are typically offered as explanation. First, the total number of lifetime partners and the exposure period increase with age, and both mining and textile sectors tend to employ older men and women: there has been a lack of new hires of younger Basotho men in South African mines, and garment factories in Lesotho prefer hiring mature women in their 30s. Second, both sectors are highly localized, either in remote mines or in the industrial parks near Maseru and Maputsoe, and living away from one's family is associated with higher rates of MCPs and other risky sexual behaviors.

Figure 5. HIV Prevalence by Gender and Occupation (DHS 2014)
We explored factors associated with higher risk of HIV infection among women employed in migrantdominated sectors by replicating an earlier study on male migration to South Africa (Corno and de Walque, 2012). A simple regression of HIV status by occupational category shows a strong correlation for both textile workers and domestic workers: textile workers are 28 percentage points and domestic workers are 12 percentage points more likely to be HIV positive than the average Basotho woman (see Table 3

Financial Inclusion
For migrants, the need for inclusive financial services is particularly essential. Not only do migrants need to send remittances to their families but they also would greatly benefit from increased access to other financial services, including bank accounts to receive payments (for formal workers), funeral insurance, long-term savings and asset accumulation, and short-term borrowing. 38 Most Basotho still primarily access informal financial services. In 2011, only 18% of adults in Lesotho had accounts at a financial institution, compared to 29% in Swaziland and 54% in South Africa. 39 Women were also less likely than men to own an account (17% vs. 20%), as were low-income individuals (10% vs. 25%), making poor women the least likely to have access to formal financial services. This is not to say that they do not engage in financial transactions, but rather that their financial lives are characterized by informality. For example, while only 3% of women borrowed from a financial institution, 5% did so from a loan shark, and an overwhelming 51% of women borrowed from family or friends in 2011. 40 Only 10% of Basotho adults used an account to receive remittances, and only 6% used an account to send money, with an even lower share among women as, unlike male migrants, they were not enrolled in any

Figure 6. Limited use of bank accounts to transfer remittances, especially for women (FINDEX 2011)
The results of our fieldwork indicate that formal sector employment is an important entry point for women to access financial services. Seventy percent of textile workers have bank accounts, most of which were opened with their employers. Some factories also incorporate insurance schemes into employees' monthly salaries, automatically deducting a percentage of their wage. This initial introduction to formal banking services seems to induce participation in other financial services, such as savings groups.
Domestic workers generally do not have bank accounts (4 percent of those surveyed did), mostly because they cannot afford the monthly fees or because they are paid in cash or goods and thus have no need for one. Another one-fourth of domestic workers cited not having an ID as the main reason they do not have a bank account. While the survey did not explicitly ask about husband's permission, none of our respondents indicated any legal challenges in opening a bank account or access formal finances services; instead, their reasons for not engaging in financial services was overwhelmingly due to the fact that they had no need and/or not enough money to maintain activity. If there were legal constraints, it was a lack of necessary formal identification. These findings indicate progress on women's legal rights since the Lesotho Bank Amendment Act of 2008, which allowed married women to open bank accounts without their spouses' consent.
Textile workers are also more likely to participate in stokvels 43 : 21% of textile workers borrow money from a stokvel when struggling to make ends meet, compared to only 10% of surveyed domestic workers. Their participation with savings groups serves two main purposes. Our survey data suggest that some women look to stokvels when their monthly salary does not cover their expenses (about 20 percent). However 43 A stokvel is a club serving as a rotating saving scheme or credit society to which members regularly contribute an agreed monthly amount. Each month a different member receives the amount in the fund collected during that period. qualitative data indicate that textile workers also use this money to improve their homes, buying furniture and goods with the loan, which is significantly larger than their monthly salary.
Differences in financial inclusion are also apparent in what migrants do when they struggle to make ends meet: textile workers borrow from a stokvel (21 percent) or take out a loan from a loan shark (43 percent), as well as borrow from family or friends (11 percent) or cut back on expenses (14 percent). In contrast, if domestic workers are short on money at the end of the month, they are more likely to do nothing (38 percent) or cut back on expenses (22 percent), consistent with the notion that domestic workers do not have many living expenses. Ten percent report borrowing money from a stokvel and another 10 percent borrow from their employer. Few domestic workers take out a loan (5 percent).
Our survey respondents report very low usage of mobile money, even to send remittances. Female migrants generally send money home through family or friends (about 33 percent) or carry money home themselves when they visit (41 percent). Thirteen percent send money home with a public bus driver and about 7 percent use mPesa (more domestic than textile workers). A handful of women reported using the post office or a bank teller, with one woman's sibling actually traveling to Maseru to pick the money up.
Domestic workers also noted that they send money home with other domestic workers, pooling their money and taking turns.
Women and their families spend an average of M65 remitting money, although women report paying up to M320 to remit. They talk about risks involved in using informal channels -friends "lose" the money and ask for a fee -but migrants often have no other options given the costs ("Some reasons are that, if they wanted to send money to their families they would have to send it through banks and bank charges are expensive," rural man). However, even if cost were not an issue, only 16 percent of respondents would use mPesa, still roughly half (51 percent) would carry the money home themselves, about 15 percent would still use friends or family, and about 8 percent would use bank tellers (mostly textile workers). It is unclear why more women do not or would not use mPesa or other formal options. It might be that women are not fully aware of these options (one domestic worker said that someone tried to explain it to her but she was unable to grasp how to use it) that they prefer to buy goods or foodstuffs in urban areas and carry these home instead.
What can be done? Migrant labor is central to household structures and livelihood activities in Lesotho.
Remittances constitute almost one-fourth of the GNP: many Basotho are dependent on others for their 48 main source of income or are dependent on remittances as a part of it. 44 The CENFRI MAP study identifies migrants as a key population that would benefit from the targeting of other financial services, such as repatriation funeral insurance and cross-border payment of dependents' insurance premiums, retirement or other long-term savings, or cross-border payment of loans. As such, efforts to promote financial inclusion should leverage the fact that migration is so common and use remittances as their entry-point.
Given households' increasing dependence on female migrants' remittances, policy can address two key areas: 1) provide cheaper, more formal ways to send money to rural family households; and 2) promote and/or provide some educational savings product to help finance children's education. If successful, remittances can be an important channel through which to promote broader financial inclusion among women.
With regard to the first, female migrants continue to use informal channels of remitting money home.
This results in them sending money inconsistently and less efficiently, often when a trusted family or friend travels to rural areas, or when the migrant herself can make the trip home. A better way for these women to send money home is clearly needed, and the promotion of new technologies to do so, such as mPesa, could be a priority. Consistent with CENFRI MAP study recommendations, low-cost remittance services need to be cheaper for both salaried workers and for private dependents (domestic workers and cross-border traders). This can be achieved by increasing resources in rural areas (recruit agents and partner with more banks) and teaming with trusted retailers, such as Shoprite. At the same time, mobile coverage has grown exponentially according to the Lesotho Communication Authority's "The State of Communications Sector and ICT Indicators in Lesotho" (2009). To take advantage, women might need nudges, or incentives, to try them out. Customer incentives have been found to lead to early adoption of mPesa. 45 "Money back guarantees", which emphasize the lack of risk involved, free top-up offers, and replicating loyalty credit card schemes have been highlighted as potential avenues to increase up-take of mobile money.
Second, providing female migrants some kind of educational savings product might be particularly useful.
Many migrants are working to finance their children's education, and the need to finance education is a key concern among migrants. Mechanisms, such as commitment savings products, might be particularly useful to help women set aside money each month to pay for their children's education both when finances are tight and for the longer-term. 44 CENFRI MAP study (http://cenfri.org/making-access-possible/map-lesotho). 45 http://www.gsma.com/mobilefordevelopment/programmes/mobile-money-for-the-unbanked/mmu-examples.

Children's Education
As discussed in Part I, education is a primary impetus for Basotho women moving for work. For one, it is closely related to younger women's decisions to migrate when they drop out of school, usually due to family financial hardship. Two, older women are motivated to move to urban areas to provide for their children's education. Education also influences where migrants' children live: small children and babies too young for school tend to live with their working mothers in urban areas, and attend daycare in the neighborhood during the day. 46 Primary school age children live in rural areas, usually with the grandmother, because schooling is government funded and non-school living costs are too high in urban areas. Older children often live with the mother in urban areas because secondary schools are more available (when asked if children in Maseru are in school: "Yes they do, that is why they came in the first place", textile worker).
With financial support from their mothers, these children are able to attend school at very high rates: no migrant children in rural areas were not in school, and many children in Maseru/Maputsoe attended secondary school. In fact, these children are in urban areas because secondary schools are more accessible 46 This is not an option for most domestic workers, however, because they live with their employers and they do not allow it.

Box 2: Inheritance and the LCMPA
Related to financial inclusion is property inheritance, which the ISGA cites as a key economic and social justice issue that exists at the center of Lesotho's dual legal system. Customary law is patrilineal and inheritance is intestate, meaning that daughters -married or not -cannot inherit from their parents. Under common law, in contrast, all persons have equal rights to inherit property, and the LCMPA gives women the right to own and manage property in their own names. The coexistence of legal systems creates uncertainty as to which system prevails in which circumstances, particularly when it comes to marriage because the validity of marriage -under customary or civil rites -determines the rights of spouses and children to inherit. As a result, property grabbing from widows and girl children is rampant (ISGA).
Fieldwork suggests that female migrants are split in their perceptions of inheritance. For one, respondents did not voice a lot of concerns about inheritance. In fact, many grandmothers in rural communities own land and property and one-quarter of migrants surveyed own land and/or property in rural areas, with some owning in urban areas as well. Very few owned land/property previously and had lost it. Two, although women did not voice concerns, many female migrants' financial strategies did not seem to count on inheriting land/property, most likely due to hardened perceptions of patrilineal inheritance customs. Instead, women focused their income strategies on what they saw as real options: wage labor and domestic work.
there than in rural areas. Although most non-migrant children in rural communities were in governmentfunded school as well, rural respondents did mention children of non-migrants who were not able to stay in school and became herd boys or domestic workers at young ages instead: "[children not in school] usually happens to children whose parents no longer work, for those whose parents work, they stay longer at school." What can be done? These findings highlight the need to increase access to school, particularly secondary school, and to make it easier for families to finance education. This could be done, for example, by creating lower cost models of secondary school in rural areas or by expanding the availability and coverage of bursary programs. To this point, female migrants acknowledged their families' dependence on free primary school, but note the often-unmanageable costs of secondary school: "Once your child gets to high school fees get expensive and you find that they have to drop out. The government should pay for high schools and let us handle the primary school fees because they are not as expensive". Support for families might also be in the form of new financial products that help migrants and their families save for education, as discussed previously in Section 4's financial inclusion policy recommendations. Given the centrality of children's education to women's motivation to migrate, interventions addressing accessibility to school, particularly secondary school, could reduce the burden on female migrants and, in some cases, reduce the need for women to migrate in the first place.

Summary and Conclusions
This study offers an in-depth exploration of female migration in order to provide new insights for Lesotho's economic development. Our guiding questions are (i) What are the drivers of female migration, from the perspective of households and migrants?; and (ii) How can policy better adapt to the needs of female migrants and their families to respond to development challenges? Our findings can be summarized under three themes: the role of migration in Lesotho, the dynamics of women's employment, and the need for policies and programs to support female migrant workers.

Role of Migration in Lesotho
The prevalence of migration in Lesotho is well-known. Its ubiquity as a livelihood strategy in the rural communities visited by the research team made it difficult to even find non-sending households to interview. Unlike other migration-dependent countries, Lesotho has relied on migration for over a century, which may explain why, despite declining opportunities in South Africa, 80 percent of Basotho households continue to live in rural areas rather than move to the city for work. As the old model of relying on the remittances of a single male family member becomes less viable, households now send multiple migrants, including women, to live long-term in the city or abroad. As a result, rural households increasingly function as "anchors" where adult children return in between stints of work, and leave their children with grandparents when they do have work. One implication of the shift to female migration, in light of the low earnings of female migrants, is that households can no longer use remittances to build assets. This was echoed throughout the focus groups with rural households. Remittances from women are used only for basic needs, whereas with male mining workers, the amounts of remittances were larger and hence were more able to support asset accumulation of receiving households. 47 This finding is consistent with that of an earlier World Bank report 48 that migration only contributed to poverty reduction in the case of male migration to South Africa. Finally, lack of access to secondary education is a key contributor to female migration, as young women report migrating after dropping out of school, and older women migrate in order to support their children's educational expenses. 47 Crush et al. (2010)  Improved measures would allow for more precise estimates of the prevalence and trends of migration, as well as the characteristics of migrants and their households.

Dynamics of Women's Employment
In a context with limited employment options for men or women, the growth of the export garment industry in Lesotho has been a boon for women. It offers one of the few opportunities for formal employment. Despite being based in Lesotho, these opportunities do not lessen the link between employment and migration, with the great majority (80%) of textile workers being internal migrants 49 . As confirmed through qualitative interviews, these migrant women do not see returning home as an option, so, even if they are to lose their jobs in the textile industry, they are likely to stay in Maseru and turn to informal employment to sustain themselves and their families. Finding ways to support women in informal self-employment as well as support their children to stay in school will be essential.
This study offers insight into informal women's employment through the experience of domestic workers.
We found a higher than anticipated degree of two-way movement between textile and domestic work, though most respondents showed a clear preference for the formality, higher pay, and independence of textile work. Informal employment is characterized by risk and hardship, including lack of basic protections and increased vulnerability to HIV, in addition to the security risks for all migrants associated with low-income housing in urban areas. The other main occupational category dominated by women is informal business, particularly cross-border trade, which evidence suggests to entail a high degree of risk including sexual harassment and theft. 50 Our findings also support the ISGA's recommendation that more diversification in women's employment opportunities is needed.
Also important to note are the things we did not find. An increasing reliance on female migrants as breadwinners brings with it the potential for changes, both good, if women's bargaining power and control over assets improve, and bad, if household conflict increases as male traditional roles and identities are upended. Though we probed in our interviews with female migrants, we did not uncover such changes. The lack of such impacts could be due to the evolving nature of marriage in Lesotho (see 49 DHS 2009. 50 LMDA (2015. Box 1), because the low level of female earnings does not allow for much choice on how to spend remittances, or because women already enjoyed a good deal of bargaining power in their households.
Respondents also did not voice a high degree of concern about land or inheritance (see Box 2) or any increase in conflict with their spouses.

Supporting Workers
This exploration of women's experiences living and working away from their families has uncovered a few entry points where programs or policies might support migrants and their families. While this study is not The first approach uses the residence status reported in the household data set to identify migrants.
Because it includes both usual residents and members who usually live elsewhere in Lesotho, in South Africa, or in another country, 52 the household roster enables us to define migrant-sending households as those with at least one adult (over age 15) who is away. Household members identified as migrants live somewhere else and did not sleep in the house the night before the survey -a condition necessary to avoid including visitors who do not usually live in the household either but who happened to be present at that particular point in time. Defining migrants as absent household members is useful not only for comparing sending and non-sending households, but also households of internal versus external migrants.
By contrast, the individual-level data set can only capture internal migration since the respondent had to be in Lesotho to participate in the survey.
The second approach, based on whether or not respondents had taken at least one trip of three months or more during the previous five years, is more suitable for analyzing individual-level characteristics of internal migration. An earlier version of the report using 2009 DHS data defined migrants as individuals who did not always live in their current place of residence, which was consistent with other studies using 51 The subgroup of labor migrants consists of individuals who listed as "work" the reason for most recent trip of three months or more. 52 There are some discrepancies between the phrasing of the questions in the survey instrument (included at the bottom of the DHS report) and variables available. We based our analysis on the answers available in the data.

57
DHS data (Brockerhoff & Biddlecom, 1999;Kimuna & Djamba, 2012;Temin et al, 2013). However, the question was removed from the 2014 DHS and replaced by a series of questions on recent trips including number of trips and duration, destination, and purpose of the most recent trip.
Finally, we cross-checked migration and employment estimates using information from the 2010-11 wave of the Household Budget Survey (HBS). Data available in the HBS made it possible to identify household members who lived somewhere else during the previous 12 months, whether elsewhere in Lesotho, in South Africa, or in another country, and to determine the number of months spent away. Based on the methodology employed in previous World Bank reports, 53 migrant-sending households were therefore defined as those having at least one member who spent any time away from the household the previous year. In the end, we decided to base our analysis on the DHS due to data limitations of the HBS (discussed below) as well as important advantages of the DHS, notably HIV test results and occupation codes enabling us to identify textile and domestic workers.

Challenges and recommendations i. Demographic Households Survey (DHS)
We faced a number of challenges in trying to identify labor migrants based on existing nationallyrepresentative data. First, the terminology employed in the DHS to indicates the residence status of household members was inconsistent. In the accompanying report, people who usually live in the households are referred to as de jure members, and people who slept in the household the previous night are referred to as de facto members. Most household members are both de jure and de facto, whereas migrants would be usual residents who were away at the time of the survey -de jure but not de facto. In the data set, however, information on whether the person lives elsewhere in Lesotho or in South Africa is only available for household members who are not usual -or de jure -residents. We contacted DHS through the user forum and were told that, due to how prevalent labor migration is in Lesotho, "the decision was made to include people who are part of the family, but who do not usually live in the household nor slept in the household the previous night." As explained above, we therefore defined migrants as household members who are neither de jure nor de facto residents. Second, by only capturing the last move, information on migrants in the individual data set may underestimate the length of the migration experience. Lack of specific data on the geographic location of the previous place of residence 58 may, on the other hand, overestimate the scale of migration in instances where the move occurred over administrative lines that are in close proximity (e.g. different outskirts of Maseru).
Ideas for how to improve data collection can be drawn from the 2011 Nepal DHS, which introduced a module on migration. Specific questions included gender, date of departure, age at departure, reason for moving, and destination for each former household resident who migrated elsewhere in the 10 years prior to the survey. The choice of the 10-year limit reflects the desire to capture both period migration and lifetime migration, where period migration indicates the mobility patterns of migrants during the previous five years, and lifetime migration indicates a permanent shift in place of residence that occurred more than five years before. The DHS decided to include this new module to account for the mass internal and external migration occurring in Nepal. Considering that migration is arguably as common in Lesotho as it is in Nepal, 54 and despite the recent changes introduced in the 2014 DHS, we strongly recommend introducing a similar migration module in the next wave of the DHS.

ii. Household and Budget Survey (HBS)
The limitations presented by the HBS were harder to overcome. 55 First, the materials we had at our disposal did not explain how households were defined and whether, as in the case of the DHS, family members who had been absent for some time were included or not. Our definition of migrants relied exclusively on whether a person had been away during the previous 12 months, although the reason for departure was unknown. Additional information on the length of time spent away was not extremely useful either, as it was unclear whether the duration referred only to the last trip or to the entire period the household member lived elsewhere. For instance, in the first quarter of the 2011-12 HBS, 72 percent of "migrants" were away for a period of less than 3 months. This makes it unlikely that work was the main purpose of the travel. Finally, significant discrepancies across the different employment indicators also made it impractical to restrict the study sample to labor migrants only. to facilitate the identification of migrants as well as to provide more detailed information on the migration experience. Given how prevalent migration is in Lesotho, the role of evidence on migration trends in informing decision-making in a range of policy areas cannot be overstated. 56 We welcome the addition of questions on remittances from within the country in the 2013-14 wave of the survey.

Annex 2. Details of Fieldwork
A mission was undertaken from March 16 to April 6, 2015 to collect primary data for this study. With the assistance from a team of local researchers, 57 the research team undertook i) 210 survey interviews with female migrants, ii) four urban focus group discussions with migrants, iii) seven in-depth, semi-structured, interviews with selected migrant women, as well as five of these women's family households in rural sending communities, and iv) six focus group discussions with women and men from sending communities. Prior to the mission 15 key semi-structured interviews were conducted with domestic and textile workers to inform the interview design.
The quantitative survey utilized a structured questionnaire using pencil and paper and data were entered for analysis. In-depth interviews and focus groups were recorded and transcribed. All interviews with migrants and their communities took place in SeSotho. For all interviews and focus groups conducted at a non-work location, local researchers made callbacks to workers to guide them to the correct place and confirm the interview appointment. For remotely placed interviews, a transport allowance was provided to cover the cost of participating. For each interview that took place in a work setting, a token ($1.50 value) prepaid phone card was offered as appreciation.
The sequencing of the methods was important: key informant interviews and semi-structured interviews with female migrants prior to the mission informed the quantitative survey instrument, and the survey interviews helped identify a small, but diverse group of seven female migrants who had volunteered for a more in-depth study (more than 95 percent of those interviewed in the survey volunteered). These seven women were subject to a more in-depth interview and the research team visited five of these seven women's family households in three different rural areas. In these sending villages, in-depth interviews were conducted with the migrant-sending family household and with a non-migrant-sending household to serve as a comparison. Two separate focus groups, one with men and one with women, provided community-level perceptions of and attitudes toward labor migration and its effects on families.

A. Quantitative Survey of Migrants
Prior to the mission, information on factories in the textile industry was collected through Lesotho National Development Corporation (LNDC), Better Work, and factory unions (UNITE, FAWU, LECAWU, 57 The local study team consisted of two smaller teams. A team of qualitative researchers consisted of one team leader with experience leading FGDs and two assistants with research experience. A second survey team consisted of six researchers with enumeration experience. All members were fluent in English and SeSotho. Two international researchers provided oversight throughout the fieldwork.

61
NUTEX, and Lentsoe Le Sechaba). These data enabled the team to identify a diverse set of factories from which to randomly sample migrant workers. Factories were selected so as to maximize variation in the following characteristics: the number of workers, the production size, export market, level of unionization, owner identification, and the (current and past) membership of factory organizations (Better Work, the Apparel Lesotho Alliance to Fight Aids (ALAFA), and the Lesotho Textile Exporters Association).
The team identified three factories of varying sizes and three back-up factories with similar traits that could be approached if the first choice was not possible. In reality, the team was not rejected from any factories, but two of the 'first' choices were unreachable. Factories were all contacted prior to the mission, but the arrangements for interviews were primarily negotiated in detail during the mission. The three factories from which female migrant workers were sampled and interviewed were:  Mauri Garments. Mauri was the smallest factory in the study with approximately 250 workers.
The factory was established in 1991 by Mauritian nationals and located in the Maseru industrial area. Mauri previously exported to the U.S. market, but now focuses on the South African market.
While exporting to the U.S. market Mauri was part of the Better Work initiative but withdrew when production shifted to the South African market. Mauri participated in the now defunct ALAFA program, but is not a member of the Exporters Association. With the help of the Human Resources department, migrant garment workers were identified through a review of contracts, in which the worker's family household location is listed. Only workers whose family household was located beyond Maseru District, and at a distance at which they would qualify as migrating for work, were considered for interviews. A random sample was selected and workers were invited to interviews on a Saturday at the LNDC building. A handful of workers who failed to show up for the interviews were subsequently contacted and interviewed during their lunch hour at the factory location. Maputsoe on a Saturday. Only workers whose family household was located outside Leribe District, and at a distance at which they would qualify as migrating for work, were considered for interviews.
 Tai Yuan Garments. Tai Yuan was the largest selected factory and based in Thetsane industrial area in Maseru. It currently employs approximately 2,200 workers. Tai Yuan's ownership is Taiwanese based. The production is primarily for the U.S. market and the factory had membership with Better Work, the Exporter's Association, and participated in ALAFA programs at the time of the interviews. The factory was established in 1996. The three-person HR department at Tai Yuan helped identify workers who were migrants and from the list of migrant workers, a randomly sampled subsection of females were invited to sit for the structured interview, which took place on a Sunday at a local hotel and nonprofit, Kick4Life.
The number of women at each factory targeted for interviews was based on the relative number of workers at the factories. More than 100 women were identified for interviews as experience showed that some would not be able to attend. Twenty-two women from Mauri Garments, 30 from Springfield, and 42 at Tai Yuan were interviewed. Twelve migrant women identified as Springfield employees but actually employed at other Maputsoe factories were also recruited and interviewed. One textile worker was ultimately dropped from analyses because she did not leave her family household for work. The enumerators' goal was to identify 25 migrant domestic workers in each community for interviews.
Enumerators would split the neighborhood up into sections they were each responsible for and knock on every 10 th door. If there was no migrant domestic worker they would pick the 10 th door once again.
Enumerators estimate they knocked on 120 doors, with very few refusals. Unlike the textile workers, the domestic workers were interviewed in their workplace. Many domestic workers arranged for interviews to take place later in the day during less busy periods. The homeowners were present in only a few cases, and while some were angry that enumerators came during working hours, many were nice and welcoming. However, enumerators asked for interviews to be done in private. One domestic worker was dropped from analyses because she recently moved for work and had not yet secured a job.
The survey instrument focused on processes and experiences related to female migration, including respondent demographics and (current and family) household composition; migration history and future plans; financial inclusion and personal expenses; current living and working conditions; sexual relationships and behaviors; and general attitudes toward female migration. The survey consisted of 243 questions and lasted an average of 60 minutes.

B. Focus group discussions with migrants
Selection of workers for focus group discussions was conducted in parallel with the selection for the survey. In factories, workers were approached and first asked if they would be willing to participate in the survey. If unable or unwilling, they were asked to join a group discussion. The focus groups and the structured interviews took place in the same locations. For domestic workers, focus group participants were identified in the neighborhoods where the structured interviews took place. During the first five days of interviews, a domestic worker who was not available at the time they were initially approached was, similar to textile workers, asked if she could schedule a personal interview for a later time. If not, she was asked if she would be willing to participate in a neutral location focus group discussion.
The focus group discussions for factory workers were grouped by factory. Approximately 12 workers were invited to each focus group with the aim of having approximately 10 present. Three focus groups were conducted with textile workers: one in Maputsoe and two in Maseru. For domestic workers, enumerators identified 24 workers with the aim of conducting two focus groups. However, despite callbacks, only two domestic workers showed up. The domestic worker groups were both planned for a Sunday, technically a day when workers are off. The workers reported either that they were not allowed to participate by the homeowner or that they had been asked to look after the homeowner's children and no longer had a day off. To compensate for the small number of participants in the domestic worker FGDs, we conducted two additional in-depth interviews with domestic workers.

C. Migrant case studies and rural migrant-sending communities
Five women who participated in the quantitative survey were identified for further investigation as case studies based on their responses to the survey. The case studies consisted of in-depth interviews with the 64 female workers and household interviews and focus group discussions in the community in which their family households are located. Case studies were chosen based on characteristics identified in the survey, such as marital status, number of children born and living, and current and family household composition, as well as through their voluntary consent for follow up interview. We made lists of unique cases based on these characteristics and selected a handful of rural areas within a reasonable distance. A number of the migrants were unable to serve as case studies for various reasons, such as their family household was unreachable by car, they gave the wrong phone number and could not be reached, or the migrant herself was going to be home visiting her family during the scheduled time of interviews.
The five case studies came from rural areas in three different districts: Leribe, Mafeteng, and Mohale's Hoek. Selected migrants were contacted and a convenient time and place was arranged for the research team to meet with them, usually at the place of employment. After obtaining consent from the migrant to speak with her again and her family, we contacted her family in the rural village either directly or through the village chief or other family members to arrange a date and time to talk with them. Case study and household interviews lasted around an hour.
Separate focus groups for men and women were conducted in three of the women's villages -two in each district, totaling six -between March 26-27 (Leribe) and March 31 -April 2 (Mafeteng and Mohale's Hoek).
The research team worked with the village chiefs to identify local men and women for group discussions and convenient places for these discussions to occur. Group discussions lasted between 1.5-2 hours.

Annex 3. Determinants of HIV among Female Migrants
The analysis of HIV prevalence among female labor migrants in Lesotho was based on an earlier study (Crono & de Walque, 2012) focusing on Basotho miners in South Africa. Using data from the 2004 wave of the Demographic and Health Survey (DHS) for Lesotho, 58 the study examined whether men working in the mining sector have a higher probability of being HIV positive and whether women, with a partner employed in the mines, are at higher risk of being infected with HIV. The probability of being HIV positive was the dependent variable and dummies equal to 1 if a male respondent declared work in the mines as his main occupation or if a female respondent had a miner as a husband were the key independent variables. A series of controls, such as age, education, place of residence, durable goods, and religion, were also included in the specification. The equation was estimated using a probit model, and separate regressions were run for men and women.
The first stage of our analysis focused on replicating Crono & de Walque's (2012) study and updating the results based on the following wave of DHS (i.e. DHS 2009). Table A1 shows estimates in which the dependent variable is HIV status (0 for HIV-negative, and 1 for HIV-positive). In columns 1-6, we report results for the sample of males, while in columns 7-8 we consider women only. Marginal effects of probit coefficients are reported together with robust standard errors adjusted for the correlation of the residuals at the survey cluster level. According to the estimates in column 1, being a miner is indeed significantly associated with HIV infection even when controlling for additional socio-demographic characteristics. The magnitude of the effect is even larger among married miners (column 3), who are 19.5 percentage points more likely to be infected with HIV than the average.
The trend discussed at the beginning of this report, of male miners getting older, on average, in the absence of new hires, is supported by data on HIV prevalence. While in 2004, miners aged 30-44 were most likely to be HIV positive, data from 2009 indicates that, instead, miners aged 35-49 (column 5) exhibit the greatest vulnerability to HIV/AIDS. The age difference between the two groups is proportional with the time lapse between the two survey rounds (5 years), suggesting that it is the same generation of miners displaying the highest probability of being HIV positive. Conversely, having a husband or partner who works as a miner no longer has a significant effect on the likelihood of being HIV positive for women, even when considering a slightly older (29-44) age group.

66
We further replicated the analysis using the 2014 DHS data, but the correlation between working as a miner and being HIV positive disappeared no matter the age or marital status. Consistent with previous findings and the lack of new opportunities for Basotho miners in South African mines, the number of male respondents listing mining as their occupation has shrunk. While 76 of the 3,075 (2.47%) men in our 2009 sample identified as miners, only 16 of the 2,773 (0.5%) did so in 2014. A lack of statistical significance may therefore be attributable to insufficient power to detect an effect. Interestingly, however, having a miner as a partner has become a strong predictor of HIV status for women across age groups (see Table A2). Even when controlling for partner's age and other confounding factors, women whose partners are miners are 10 percentage points overall, and as high as 16 percentage points among women aged 30 to 44, more likely to be HIV positive.  The second stage of our analysis examined the association between HIV prevalence and migrant status among women. The same methodology was used, with occupational dummies for (i) domestic workers, and (ii) textile factory workers, instead of miners. Of the 3,318 women for which HIV test results were available, 689 (21%) were migrants, and 230 (7%) were labor migrants. By occupation, the 92 respondents listed as "manufacturing laborers" were identified as textile workers. Although other occupation categories included "tailors, dressmakers and hatters" and "sewers, embroiders and related workers," these are skilled workers distributed relatively evenly across regions. The aim of our analysis was to estimate the probability of being HIV positive among women employed in garment factories in urban areas near Maseru and Maputsoe, so we restricted our sub-sample to manufacturing. To our knowledge, manufacturing jobs for women in Lesotho are virtually exclusively in the textile sector. The second occupational group of interest includes 227 domestic workers, identified as women "employed in household and domestic service."  Table A2 reports summary statistics on all control variables for the sub-sample of women with available HIV results. The DHS collects information on adult women aged 15 to 49, and the average age in our sample is 28. Half (50%) of respondents completed secondary school, closely followed by a large share (41%) of respondents who completed primary school only. Only 8% of respondents completed tertiary school. The sample is also relatively evenly split among Catholic (39%) and Protestant (59%) respondents, with virtually nobody listed as having no religion (1%). Lesotho remains a predominantly rural country, with a growing share of surveyed women (32%) living in urban areas. Finally, respondents owned 1.48 durable goods, on average, based on an index from 0 to 7 indicating the number of assets owned among electricity, radio, television, refrigerator, bicycle, motorcycle/scooter, and car/truck.