Women migrants'Äô health and work after COVID-19: an intersectional and comparative study in Malaysia and Thailand

The COVID-19 pandemic and efforts to control it have threatened livelihoods, introduced new workplace risks and made unstable work relationships even more precarious, especially for women. This project will examine the gendered experiences and resilience strategies of women migrants in Malaysia and Thailand in terms of work, health and healthcare access related to COVID-19. The study will focus on the intersectional aspects of gender inequity, migration, labour and COVID-19 that shape health and human rights among women migrants. It will encompass four sites involving 1,000 women and assess differential and shared experiences between migrants with documented/formal and undocumented/informal statuses. The evidence generated will inform gender-transformative policies and interventions for women migrants in Thailand and Malaysia. Using community-engaged processes, the research will create opportunities for migrant women'Äôs empowerment. The project will also build institutional capacity in the participating academic and civil society organizations on gender-transformative research. This project is funded under Women'Äôs health and economic empowerment for a COVID-19 Recovery that is Inclusive, Sustainable and Equitable (Women RISE), an initiative of IDRC, the Canadian Institutes of Health Research, and the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council. Its aim is to support global action-oriented, gender-transformative research by teams of researchers from low- and middle-income countries and Canada.