International migrants include rural and urban women and men with different socio-economic profiles and ages. Some are highly educated and specialized people (whose migration is referred to as ‘brain drain’). Some are poor people for whom migration is a subsistence strategy. The United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) estimates that the typical profile of migrants comprises young women and men from 15 to 35 years of age, 8 generally belonging to medium and low socio- economic groups, but not to the poorest segments of society (Hatton and Williamson 2004, 1-30). Although it is often presumed that the majority of international migrants are men, women comprise approximately half (Zlotnik 2003). Moreover, there is a general trend towards a.
