This paper examines the patterns of gendered effects of migration on women’s involvement in local agriculture in the dry areas of the world. Dryland communities are often characterized by rural transformations related to agricultural intensification, particularly as a result of irrigation provisions. They also experience high levels of outmigration, exacerbated by increased resource degradation – with implications for wage work, unpaid work, agricultural management, and related decision-making (Abdelali-Martini et al. 2003; Okpara et al. 2016; Stringer et al. 2017; Byakagaba et al. 2018; Najjar et al. 2018). Exploring how outmigration influences the feminization of agriculture in drylands is important because the types and duration of, and reasons for, migration have significant implications for the economic, psychosocial, and cultural outcomes of agrarian women’s livelihoods in the dry areas. Furthermore, the return migration of dryland inhabitants, particularly men, has been shown to cause tensions at the household and communal levels