81

In Sub-Saharan Africa, internal migration among young adult usually corresponds to matters other than those related to high education, which only concerns a minority. In Africa, migration represents one important demographic response to conditions of poverty and environmental stress. Male migration, which is anterior to female one, can be considered as a component of a strategy to diversify the family income sources. The emerging contribution of young single women to the internal migration stream, which has started a couple of decades ago, leads to reconsider mobility in young adulthood in a broader perspective, as a possible mean of socialization and regarding changes in the relationships with previous generations and between sexes. This paper aims to document the development of rural female migration in Mali from this point of view. In its form, the expansion of migration among women looks very much like a later reproduction of the development of migration among men; nevertheless an analysis of its features and how they relate to family organization points out gender differences both in terms of individual expectations and personal construction.