In the early decades of the 21st century, countries are increasingly participating in the global economy. Many developing nations, such as Sri Lanka, send not only goods but also labourers into international markets. Since the late 1970s, working-class Sri Lankans have sojourned in West Asia as guest workers in ever-growing numbers.1 In 2009, when the data that are analysed here were gathered, Sri Lanka had a population of 20 million, and roughly 1.8 million transnational migrants worked abroad (SLBFE, 2010: 4, 142). Migrants thus constituted 9 per cent of the population, and over half of themigrants were women (SLBFE, 2010: 6). Some 89 per cent of these sojourner women worked as domestic servants, most of them in the Gulf (SLBFE, 2010: 11). Female migrants’ most often stated goal was to earn money abroad, buy land and build a house in Sri Lanka and improve their family’s status. Recently, members of the younger generation (often well-educated children of the older labour migrants) have been going abroad, heading not only to the Gulf but also to more desirable destinations, such as Korea, Cyprus, Malaysia, Israel and Italy, sometimes with the hope of settling permanently in their host country.