varying differences that exist in gender roles and expectations in immigrant families
Exploration of family relationships and the function of the immigrant families has become a topic of discussion. However, the issue of gender roles and expectations in immigrant families is highly ignored. Gender serves as an additional layer of complexity of the immigrants, and other settlement processes since children and other family members have to navigate and negotiate their adaptation to the new place. They have to understand the gender roles, norms, and expectations of their community and the host community. This brings the question of the varying differences that exist in gender roles and expectations in immigrant families.
Gender roles in society are the society’s view on how one is expected to act, speak as well as dress themselves based on their assigned sex. An example is where girls and women are expected to dress in a specific feminine way and politely, being accommodative and nurturing. On the other hand, men are expected to portray certain characters, such as strong, bold, and aggressive. Further, every society and ethnic group has certain gender role expectations, even though they vary from one group to another (Menjívar et al., 2016). Gender roles and expectations can also change in the same society when one migrates with time.
Gender Expectations refer to the widely accepted judgments concerning a certain group of people about when they are simplified. They are not always accurate. Gender roles have always been attributed to the biological differences that exist between men and women. The varying differences in gender roles are evolution or situation, for instance, in immigrant families (Rania et al., 2018). This is why men are expected to be aggressive, which increases their fitness, enabling them to compete with other men in accessing females. That’s why sociologists argue that gender roles are evolutionally in nature hence the significant difference between the gender roles and expectations.
Connectively, there are significant differences in gender roles and expectations when evaluating immigrant families. Research conducted indicates that in immigrants, families fathers are expected to play the role of providing teaching as well as teaching their children customs and traditions, which helps in shaping the children’s behaviors. The fathers are more willing to give back to society, but they face the challenges in their immigration experiences, which make it difficult (Pessin & Arpino, 2018). These challenges included unemployment, fear of children losing the cultural heritage, discrimination as well as social isolation. They claimed that they faced difficulties as they adjusted to the new country. This lead to a difference in gender roles that were by both genders in their families. The perception of both the parents and their children concerning gender and parenting roles has a significant influence on parent’s stress levels.
There is a significant difference in gender roles in terms of division of labor in immigrant families. When one makes a comparison on gender roles and expectations within immigration families before migrating and after migration shows that there is a varying difference. Studies show that before migration, the families, husband, and wives overwhelming made agreements on the division of domestic labor as well as power dynamics in sex-segregated families. Mostly men had so much power in the family (Rania et al., 2018). For instance, the decision of migrating was solely made by the male. Additionally, house chores always involved a new company with other men and women. On the other hand, before migration, males were the family breadwinners, and females would nurture and take care of the children.
However, after migration, gender roles and expectations greatly changed. In immigrant families, they have a greater need for economic self-sufficiency. This leads to changes in gender roles and expectations. Normally, it is expected that the man should bread win the family, and women should never work but instead care for the family (Menjívar et al., 2016). However, there is an excellent variety of gender roles and expectations. Due to economic insufficient, then it calls for change in family roles. An example is where women are forced to seek wage employment got help their husbands in breadwinning their family even though this did not cause a significant impact on the division of labor within the family.
In the immigration families, gender roles of having power over the family also vary. Before migration, the husband has excellent power in the family, but there is a unique variation of extending power in most of the immigrant families. Additionally, women began viewing their paid work as the inclusion of domestic chores. When performing the duties, there is no company since they leave the extended family behind (Fuller, 2017). However, the husbands still maintain their “male” tasks but with assistance with their sons. Another change is that men in the immigrant family tend to participate more in shopping and payment of bill’s needs.
Research, however, indicates that division of labor and power within immigrant families changes just a little bit. A study conducted on immigrant families showed that, in some cases, the roles and expectations of each gender did not change since women took their gender roles normally even though they were in paid labor. There was no change in the gender behaviors and power (Fuller, 2017). However, in some rare cases, in immigration families, there is an increased degree of power-sharing that happens between the husband and wife with a division of labor remaining sex-specific. Hence, in immigrant families, there is considerable variation in gender roles and expectations, the migration scenario led to many changes which more so faced women gender roles and expectations since they had to learn how to do both paid and domestic work.
In the immigrant families of sex transcendent division of labor and shared power does not change significantly. However, the men are said to play a significant role in their domestic labor, and there is shared power in making any critical decisions in the family. Hence, these immigrant families tend to show that there is no significant variation in the different gender roles and expectations in sex transcendent families. There are still shared responsibilities and various obligations of running their households together. Hence for immigration families, one can say that there are no significant changes in the role of the family except the changes in seeking employment to make ends meet in the new environment. There are gender expectations that women will not be involved in decision making of any significant event in the family that these changes since they also get the power of presenting their opinion on the current situation (Fuller, 2017). They also seek paid work so that they can help their husband in the settling of family bills, which breaks gender expectations by the society on what role and activity they can carry out in their families.
On the other hand, gender roles and expectations on parental roles also change. Through the use of early socialization perspective theory, there is no gender equality, which then shows that gender roles and expectations till remain to be so distinct and in accordance to Donnalyn Pompper that is the reason why men are always said to be the primary breadwinners even though women also chip in sometimes. Immigration families face different varying changes in gender roles and expectations when they move to a new place (Menjívar et al., 2016). Another less studied part of immigration family gender roles in the immigrant family violence. Mostly family relationship revolves around the obligations and responsibilities of the parties as well as their status and power. Due to the culturally constructed masculinity and feminine, which leads to rigid and narrow gender roles. This contributes to a large culture of violence in immigration families.
In conclusion, immigrant families face varying differences in their gender roles and expectations; before migration, there are specific gender roles that women and males play in their families. For instance, women are expected to perform all the household chores and care and nurture their families. On the other hand, husbands are the breadwinners of the family. However, in the immigration families, then there is an excellent variation on gender roles and expectations. An example is where women begin working for paid work and helping in payment of bills. Males, on the other hand, they also help in playing household chores. Further, there is a change in who has more power in the family since they have a shared degree of gender roles. To sum up, there are variations in the gender roles and expectations of immigrant families.
References
Menjívar, C., Abrego, L. J., & Schmalzbauer, L. C. (2016). Immigrant families. John Wiley & Sons.
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/225165370_How_Does_Migration_Affect_Mothers’_and_Fathers’_Roles_Within_their_Families_Reflections_on_some_Recent_Research
Rania, N., Migliorini, L., & Rebora, S. (2018). Family acculturation in the host and immigrant couples: Dyadic research in an Italian context. Europe’s journal of psychology, 14(4), 914.
https://www.jstor.org/stable/41602319?seq=13#metadata_info_tab_contents
Fuller, H. R. (2017). The emotional toll of out‐migration on mothers and fathers left behind in Mexico. International Migration, 55(3), 156-172.
Pessin, L., & Arpino, B. (2018). Navigating between two cultures: Immigrants’ gender attitudes toward working women. Demographic Research, 38, 967.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5875938/