Population mobility is a key facet of the rapid social transformations underway in southern Africa, with both positive and negative health and economic and consequences for individuals, families and communities. Yet the very manner in which migration is conventionally studied is shaped by the paradigm of male labor migration, and thus fails to capture the magnitude and complexity of women's participation in migration in southern Africa today.
Camlin reviews literatures across several disciplines to describe sex-specific spatial and temporal patterns of migration in southern Africa. She and her colleagues weigh the evidence for a feminization of migration in the region and for changes in the factors that drive female migration. They then present a case study of sex differences in recent trends, patterns and determinants of migration of a population living in a primarily rural area of KwaZulu-Natal South Africa, over the years 2001 to 2006.

Carol Camlin is trained in public health and population studies, with experience in sexual and reproductive health and HIV prevention in sub-Saharan Africa. Working across the disciplines of social demography, epidemiology and health behavior, her research focuses on gender, migration and HIV prevention. The main emphasis of this work has been to examine the overlooked role that women's participation in migration may play in sustaining the enormous HIV epidemic in Southern and East Africa.

Camlin is Assistant Professor of OB/GYN and Reproductive Sciences and Center for AIDS Prevention Studies at the University of California at San Francisco.