Dangerous destinations: How gendered safety concerns shape South Asian expatriate parents’ university destination decisions

Abstract This paper examines how South Asian expatriate parents in the United Arab Emirates (UAE) navigate the university destination decision-making process for their daughters, focusing specifically on their gendered safety concerns. While existing literature often connects the persistent gender gap in South Asian student migration to parents’ patriarchal biases and fears about female safety overseas, we argue that parents’ views in the South Asian diaspora are far more nuanced. Drawing on a survey of 110 South Asian parents in the UAE and thirty-two in-depth interviews, we found no statistically significant difference in the proportion of daughters versus sons sent overseas to Western universities. This decision was largely motivated by parents’ beliefs in gender egalitarianism. However, our research also revealed that parents’ gendered safety concerns continued to play a role in a series of “sub-migration decisions” where parents steered their daughters’ country, university, and accommodation choices even as they supported their international migration overall. These risk mitigation strategies were a byproduct of parents’ view of the UAE as exceptionally safe, while almost all other countries, but especially the USA and India, were seen as more dangerous in geographically-specific ways. Simultaneously, parents rationalized their daughters’ international studies using a narrative previously reserved for male migrants—that independent migration helps these young women learn to live with risk and develop independence. This paper thus demonstrates that gender continues to shape the international student migration process even among South Asian families holding egalitarian gender views, but in more nuanced ways than previously acknowledged.