Cape Verdean Female Migration and the New Transnational Matrifocal Families

In Santo Antão (Cape Verde), independent female migration has gained increasing importance since 1970, reversing previous trends of prevailingly male emigration. This change has not de-structured the matrifocal model of Cape Verdean society, but has rather reinforced it while simultaneously changing its features, giving rise to new transnational matrifocal families. Female migration has reinforced matrifocality in that migrant women’s children are raised by female community members, as foreseen by well-established social practices that follow matrifocal lines. At the same time, female migration has destabilized patriarchal power, bringing growing tension to gender relationships as women, due to their new economic power and access to mobility, have acquired a higher social status and become heads-of-the-family in all respects. Although in a contradictory way, matrifocality in the context of male domination is shifting towards a transnational matrifocality characterised by women’s growing independence.