Main article
Archived Content
Information identified as archived is provided for reference, research or recordkeeping purposes. It is not subject to the Government of Canada Web Standards and has not been altered or updated since it was archived. Please "contact us" to request a format other than those available.
- Introduction
- Women's paid and unpaid labour: Cross-national comparisons and post-migration studies
- Data, measures, and methods
- Descriptive results
- Multivariate results
- Conclusions
1 Introduction
The significant increase in women’s paid employment throughout the 20th century and its implications for women’s working and personal lives have attracted much attention from social researchers. Studies examining the determinants of women’s paid and unpaid (i.e., housework) labour activities typically centre on individual- or couple-level factors, investigating how household decisions are influenced by socio-economic circumstances and negotiated between spouses or partners (e.g.: Becker 1981; Chiappori 1992; Laporte and Schellenberg 2011). However, other literature centres on the influence of gender itself (e.g.: Berk 1985; Calasanti and Bailey 1991; Greenstein 1996; Presser 1994), arguing that men and women are socialized to assume particular gender roles within the household (Coltrane 2000, p. 1213; Cunningham 2001).
In addition, an emerging literature links women’s labour activities with national-level factors, thus providing a different perspective on how cultural norms may influence women’s paid and unpaid work (e.g.: Fuwa 2004; Fuwa and Cohen 2007; Knudsen and W?rness 2008; Ruppanner 2010a, 2010b). Blumberg (1984) contends that households are "nested" within national-level systems. Many studies have built on this hypothesis, arguing that societal factors influence how couples organize household tasks, both in terms of how different types of tasks are divided between spouses and the absolute amount of time each spouse spends doing housework (e.g.: Craig and Mullan 2011; Geist 2005). National context is then assumed to play an important role, with prevailing notions of gender roles within a country influencing the labour activities of women and men (Hook 2010). Indeed, empirical studies have found a relationship between societal attitudes toward gender roles and women’s decisions and attitudes about their place within the family and the labour market (e.g.: Antecol 2000; Fuwa 2004; Kan et al. 2011).
Cross-cultural research that considers national-level characteristics suggests that women’s labour market and housework activities are associated with institutional and cultural forces within their societies (Geist 2005; Knudsen and W?rness 2008). Certain national-level factors, such as female labour force participation rates and female–male secondary education enrolment ratios, are taken as indicators of the extent to which "traditional" gender roles are embraced within a country and are used to assess how gender-related cultural norms may influence women’s labour decisions. Empirical analyses along this line of inquiry have focused on the effects of national characteristics such as the level of economic development, the level of female empowerment, 1 or the characteristics of the welfare system.
An important limitation of cross-national comparisons is that they typically cannot ascertain whether the observed variation in women’s share of labour is associated with differences in cultural factors or institutional contexts between nations. The limited numbers of countries included in these studies also prevent adequate controls for country-level attributes and sometimes yield cross-national comparisons characterized by modest variation in gender norms (e.g., Baxter 1997). One way to address these limitations is to isolate the effect of cultural traits by holding institutional contexts relatively constant. Such "natural experiments" require subjects who have different cultural backgrounds but are exposed to the same national institutions and policies. This can be achieved by examining immigrants from various source countries who arrive in the same host country as adults. The association between source-country characteristics and immigrants’ labour market and household activities in the host country allows for an assessment of cultural factors independent of the institutions and conditions across nations (Antecol 2000; Blau et al. 2011; Fernández and Fogli 2009).
This study extends the literature on the relationship between source-country characteristics and immigrant women’s labour by investigating the potential influence that cultural factors related to gender norms in immigrants’ home countries may have on immigrants’ paid and unpaid work in Canada. The following questions are addressed: (1) Are indicators of traditional gender roles in the source countries of immigrant wives correlated with their labour force participation and contributions to housework in the years after landing in Canada?; (2) Does the strength of these relationships diminish with time in Canada? That is, how durable are the effects of source-country gender roles?; (3) Are the relationships between traditional gender roles and labour outcomes different when husbands and wives are from different source countries?; and (4) Are source-country gender roles also correlated with the labour activities and housework contributions of immigrant husbands?
The remainder of the paper is organized into six sections. Section 2 provides an overview of the research literature on differences in women’s labour activities across nations and on the persistence of source-country gender roles within immigrant families. This is followed, in Section 3, by a discussion of the data, measures, and methods used in the study. Descriptive and multivariate results are then presented in sections 4 and 5, respectively. Finally, Section 6 provides a summary of the main conclusions of the study.
For simplicity, in this paper, the term married refers to individuals who are legally married or living as common-law spouses, the term wife/wives refers to both wives and common-law female partners, and the term husband/husbands refers to both husbands and common-law male partners.
2 Women's paid and unpaid labour: Cross-national comparisons and post-migration studies
Cross-national studies have largely concluded that women’s labour force participation and share of household labour vary across nations, indicating that there are national-level influences on women’s paid and unpaid work (Batalova and Cohen 2002; Bittman et al. 2003; Fortin 2005; Fuwa 2004; Fuwa and Cohen 2007; Heisig 2011; Hook 2006; Kan et al. 2011; Knudsen and W?rness 2008; Nieuwenhuis et al. 2012; Yodanis 2005). These studies examined the roles that different national economic and social characteristics play in women’s labour decisions. As well, several studies have discussed the relationship between women’s household labour and policies pertaining to employment and child care (e.g.: Craig and Mullan 2011; Fuwa and Cohen 2007; Geist and Cohen 2011; Gershuny and Sullivan 2003; Kan et al. 2011; Lewis 1992). For example, women in countries with policies that actively promote women’s labour force participation are found to assume a smaller share of housework than women in countries with policies based on assumptions of "traditional" (i.e., male breadwinner/female caregiver) family responsibilities (Fuwa 2004; Kan et al. 2011).
Furthermore, greater representation of women in positions of political or economic power within a society are associated with greater equity in the division of household labour (Batalova and Cohen 2002; Fuwa 2004; Knudsen and W?rness 2008). With respect to other factors, women’s housework is highly negatively correlated with the level of female empowerment in their country (as indicated by its Gender Empowerment Measure score), while men’s absolute contributions to housework are more strongly correlated with their country’s level of economic development (Knudsen and W?rness 2008). However, the effects of economic development, as measured by gross domestic product (GDP), are not consistent across studies. While Fuwa (2004) found that GDP is not significantly correlated with women’s share of housework, Heisig (2011) concluded that women’s and men’s relative shares of housework across countries are associated with GDP per capita. 2 Knudsen and W?rness (2008) suggested that these inconsistencies may be due to a high correlation between national GDP and levels of female empowerment.
A number of U.S. studies have examined the potential influence that gender roles in immigrants’ source countries have on post-migration employment decisions. These studies indicate that national-level factors associated with gender roles in source countries, such as female labour force participation rates, subsequently influence first- and second-generation immigrant women’s labour market decisions (Antecol 2000; Blau et al. 2011; Fernández and Fogli 2009).
The potential influence that gender roles in immigrants’ source countries have on their post-migration labour raises questions about whether individual attitudes and behaviours change over time. Some research suggests that individuals’ beliefs regarding gender roles are formed largely in childhood and continue to shape behaviours in adulthood (Cunningham 2001; Marshall 2011; Fernández et al. 2004). The influence of attitudes and beliefs formed early in life may thus persist even when individuals move to a new country (Dion and Dion 2001). Conversely, immigrants from source countries with traditional gender roles may alter their employment and housework activities when the policies and cultural norms of the host country support greater equity between women and men. Research also suggests that immigrants’ labour choices may be less influenced by attitudinal changes toward gender roles than by pressures caused by the decline in their standard of living after arriving in the host country (Min 2001).
The extent to which immigrant women adopt the cultural and economic norms of the host country with increased length of exposure is unclear, perhaps testifying to the competing tensions some individuals experience in this regard. Dasgupta (1998, p. 955) reported that the continuation of traditional gender roles among immigrants is "integrally linked" to the maintenance of ethnic group identity upon arrival in a new country, and several studies have reported that some immigrant women experience a conflict between maintaining the cultural traditions of their countries of origin and benefiting from the opportunities offered in their host country (Agarwal 1991, p. 52; Dasgupta 1998; Kibria 1987). Studies examining subjective well-being suggest that the influence of some cultural traits does not dissipate easily after immigrants settle in a new society (Rice and Steele 2004; Veenhoven 1994). Alternatively, others have argued that immigrants’ experiences in their host country impact their behaviour over time, with "present" values diminishing the effects of "past" values (e.g., Yu 2011). Adsera and Ferrer (2011), for example, hypothesized that the fertility decisions of immigrant women from countries with higher fertility rates are influenced by the economic realities encountered in the host country, such as better employment opportunities or a higher cost of living, or by interaction with native-born individuals.
Research from the United States indicates that some degree of assimilation occurs in immigrant women’s labour market behaviour with time spent in the host country. While immigrant women generally work less upon arrival than native-born women, the hours they work "assimilate dramatically" with those of native-born American women over time (Blau et al. 2011, p. 52). This is true for women from countries with both high and low levels of female labour force participation. However, a gender gap persists across source-country groups, as women from countries with a high female labour force participation rate show smaller gaps in labour force participation rates vis-à-vis native-born women than do women from nations with lower rates (Antecol 2000). Therefore, although some assimilation occurs after migration, it appears that "a permanent, portable" cultural factor continues to influence immigrant women's labour market behaviour in the host country (Antecol 2000, p. 419; Fernández and Fogli 2005).
Contrary to findings from the United States, immigrant wives in Canada work more hours upon arrival than their native-born counterparts (Baker and Benjamin 1997). This has been attributed to a "family investment strategy" whereby wives obtain employment soon after landing to help finance the family while their husbands invest in human-capital-enhancing activities intended to improve their labour market success over the longer term (Baker and Benjamin 1997, p. 705; Duleep and Sanders 1993). Consequently, immigrant wives’ labour supply decreases over time while that of their husbands increases. Baker and Benjamin (1997) did not specifically examine the effects of source-country cultural factors on these patterns. Blau et al. (2003, p. 446) suggested that the different outcomes among immigrant women in Canada and the United States may be due to differences in the composition of immigrants in the two countries or differences in the "economic and legal circumstances" they encounter.
The effect of source-country gender roles on a woman’s labour market and household labour activities could also be affected by her husband’s country of origin (Blau et al. 2011; Fuwa 2004). Baker and Benjamin (1997) found that immigrant women with native-born spouses work less upon arrival in Canada than immigrant women with foreign-born spouses. In the United States, immigrant women’s labour force participation is correlated with the female labour force participation rate in their husbands’ country of origin (Blau et al. 2011). Findings regarding the relationship between the gender norms in husbands’ source countries and women’s labour activities could represent the impact of husbands’ attitudes toward their wives’ activities or be an indication that women and men select spouses who hold similar beliefs as themselves. However, in either case, gender-related cultural factors appear to play a significant role.
This paper contributes to the literature on the relationship between gender roles and post-migration paid and unpaid labour activities by including a broader range of outcome variables than has been used in previous studies, and by extending the primarily U.S.-based research to the Canadian context. Immigration selection systems in Canada and the United States are different, as are the compositional characteristics and labour market outcomes of immigrants. An examination of the "portability" and effects of cultural factors with a specific focus on Canada is thus warranted.
3 Data, measures, and methods
3.1 Data
This study uses a data set consisting of immigrant source-country-level attributes linked to individual immigrants in micro-data files. The Canadian 1981, 1986, 1991, 1996, 2001, and 2006 Census 20% sample micro-data files are used to provide individual-level information on labour market activities, housework, and other socio-demographic characteristics. The data for immigrant source-country attributes are compiled from various sources (see section 3.2, "Measures") and consist of national socio-economic indicators for the years 1970 to 2004.
The analysis focuses on immigrants aged 20 to 65 who are married or living as common-law spouses. Their spouses can be either Canadian-born or immigrants, also aged 20 to 65. Wives and husbands are matched using a unique census family identification number. With information on both wives and husbands, couples’ total weeks of employment and total hours of housework can be calculated, and spousal characteristics can be incorporated into the multivariate models. Immigrants who arrived in the census year or the year prior to the Census were excluded because they had not been in Canada long enough to have worked for 52 weeks (weeks of employment being one of the main outcome variables used in this paper).
The analysis of immigrant wives is restricted to those who have arrived since 1970. 3 Data on source-country attributes are sparse for prior years. While several restrictions are made to immigrant wives, there is no restriction on their husbands’ immigrant status which allows us to test whether the effects of source-country attributes on immigrant wives vary with their husbands’ immigration status. Similarly, in the analysis for immigrant husbands, only men who have immigrated to Canada since 1970 are included, and there is no restriction on their wives’ immigrant status.
The sample of immigrant wives selected from the micro-data file for each census year is merged with the database on source-country attributes using detailed country of birth and year of landing as the link keys. Put differently, immigrants in the census files are assigned a set of their source-country attributes measured in the year they came to Canada. The data files from the six censuses are then pooled together for model estimation. With pooled data, a given cohort of immigrants can be followed over time allowing differences between cohorts and changes within cohorts (the assimilation effect) to be estimated simultaneously. 4
3.2 Measures
The outcome variables are labour market activities and unpaid household work. While some studies use only ratio measures to examine husbands’ and wives’ contributions to household labour, this paper uses both absolute and relative measures of paid and unpaid labour. 5
The indicators of labour market activities are the likelihood of immigrant wives participating in the labour force (that is, the wife worked at least one week in the year prior to the Census), the number of weeks worked by immigrant wives, and immigrant wives’ share of couples’ total weeks worked during the year. "Weeks worked" refers to the number of weeks worked for pay in the year prior to the Census (e.g., 2005 for the 2006 Census). Weeks worked are coded from 0 to 52 for each spouse.
The indicators for unpaid housework are the total hours of housework done by wives and husbands during the week prior to the Census and wives’ share of the total hours of unpaid housework done by couples during the reference week. Housework data are available only for 1996, 2001, and 2006. The total hours of unpaid housework for each spouse are the hours that the person spent doing housework, maintaining the house, or doing yard work without getting paid for doing so. 6
The explanatory variables of primary interest are two indicators that reflect the degree of traditional gender roles in immigrants’ source countries. The first is the ratio of female–male labour force participation rates in the source country (hereafter referred to as "female–male labour activity") calculated for individuals aged 15 and over. 7 The ratio reflects the relative difference in paid work of women and men and thus captures the gender division of labour (Blau et al. 2011). This relative indicator mitigates problems associated with cross-country differences in the definition and measurement of labour force participation since within-country ratios affect both women and men (Antecol 2000; Blau et al. 2011). The second indicator is the ratio of female–male secondary school enrolment rates (hereafter referred to as "female–male education"). 8 This ratio reflects the gender difference in access to secondary school education. 9
Three source-country characteristics are also included as control variables: the total fertility rate, which represents the number of children that would be born to a woman by the end of her childbearing years in accordance with current age-specific fertility rates; GDP per capita in 2005 U.S. dollars; 10 and whether either English or French is an official language. 11 These variables are likely correlated with the two indicators of gender roles and with the preparedness for work in the host-country labour market.
At the individual level, the explanatory variables in the models for immigrant wives are the following: age and age squared; common-law status (1=common law, 0=legally married); visible minority status (1=visible minority, 0=white); husband’s immigration status; years since landing; period of immigration (cohort); levels of education; husband’s level of education; language spoken; and geographic region of residence. Husband’s immigration status is coded as two dummy variables: husband is Canadian-born (non-immigrant), and husband is an immigrant from a source country different from the wife’s, with the common reference group being husbands from the same country. Immigration cohorts are coded as six dummy variables: 1970–1974, 1975–1979, 1980–1984, 1985–1989, 1990–1994, and 1995–1999, with the 2000–2004 cohort as the reference group. The wife’s and husband’s levels of education are both coded as four dummy variables: graduate degree; some postsecondary education; high school graduation; and less than high school; with “bachelor degree” as the reference group. Language spoken is coded as four dummy variables: mother tongue is not English or French and not speaking English or French; mother tongue is not English or French but speaking French; mother tongue is not English or French but speaking English; and mother tongue is French. "English mother tongue" is the common reference. Three variables are included to capture the presence of children: the number of children aged 0 to 5; the number of children aged 6 to 14; and the number of children aged 15 to 17. Finally, the geographic region distinguishes the three largest metropolitan areas (Toronto, Montreal, and Vancouver), the ten provinces (excluding the three metropolitan areas), and the combined three territories. It would be ideal to have immigrants’ history of paid labour market attachment in their home countries before they immigrated, but such information is not available in the Census.
3.3 Methods
For each outcome variable, three models in sequence are estimated. Model 1 includes only the five selected source-country attributes.
For immigrant wife i from source country j,
is the chosen outcome variable.
represents
the two indicators of source-country gender roles (i.e., female–male
labour activity and female–male education), and
represents
the three source-country control variables. This model will show the overall
effect of source-country gender roles after controlling for socio-economic
development and official languages.
Model 2 adds in individual-level variables,
, as discussed in the previous section.
The change in the coefficients of gender roles from
in Model 1 to
in Model 2 will show the extent to which the effect of
gender roles in the source country works through individual characteristics.
Model 3 adds in the interaction terms between source-country gender roles and the husband’s immigration status (HIM), and between source-country gender roles and years since landing (YSL).
From Model 3, the extent to which the effect of source-country gender roles is reduced when the husband is not from the same source country as the immigrant wife, and whether the effect of source-country gender roles decreases with the length of stay in the host country, can be estimated.
Since source-country attributes of each immigrant are measured at the group level, a cluster effect is allowed in estimating standard errors in order to correct the correlated error terms within a group (Blau et al. 2011; Wooldridge 2003). Such a model is equivalent to a fixed-intercept model with level-1 covariates and level-2 predictors within the framework of hierarchical linear models (Raudenbush et al. 2000). Essentially, this approach first estimates the mean outcome for each cluster, adjusted for differences in individual-level characteristics across clusters, and then regresses the mean outcome on cluster-level predictors. The cluster in this study is based on the combination of source country/region (about 79 combinations depending on the census year) and year of landing (a total of 35 years). The cluster variable potentially has 2855 groups (35 years of landing x 79 countries). There are actually 2753 groups in our data since there is no observation in some year–country combinations.
4 Descriptive results
4.1 Cross-country differences in the indicators of gender roles
Immigrants to Canada, on average, came from source countries with lower ratios of female–male labour activity than Canada’s, but source countries differed considerably in this respect (Table 1). West Asia/the Middle East, South Asia, and Central America had the lowest ratios in both 1981 and 2006, suggesting persistent cultural difference in the labour market participation of women relative to men across countries (Table 1).
Persistent differences in the female–male labour activity were particularly evident at the country level. The Pearson correlation was 0.99 between the values for 1981 and 1991, and 0.96 between the values for 1991 and 2006. Although the ratio increased in most countries over the study period, the relative difference across countries changed very little. The regional averages presented in Table 1 mask considerable variations among countries within regions. 12 Regional means are presented in Table 1 for the sake of parsimony, but country-level measures are used in the multivariate models.
Compared with the persistence in the cross-country differences in women’s relative labour activity, the ratios of female–male education tended to converge. While the ratio of female–male education in Canada remained at parity between 1981 and 2006, source regions at the bottom of the ranking in 1981, such as South Asia, Africa, and West Asia/the Middle East, experienced considerable gains in subsequent years. As a result, the regional differences in female–male education were much smaller in 2006 than in 1981. At the country level, the Pearson correlation was 0.85 between the 1981 and 1991 values and was 0.65 between the 1991 and 2006 values. These results suggest that the difference in female–male education across source countries was not as persistent as the difference in female–male labour activity. That is, gender gaps in education closed more quickly than gender gaps in labour market participation. Furthermore, the correlations among the five source-country characteristics show that female–male education was more strongly correlated with both GDP per capita and total fertility rate than was female–male labour activity, particularly in 1981 (Table 2).
4.2 Married immigrant women’s labour market activity and housework by source region
Are differences across source regions in female–male labour activity correlated with married immigrant women’s labour market activity in Canada? In both 1981 and 2006, married recent-immigrant 13 women from West Asia/the Middle East and Central America ranked among the lowest in their own weeks worked and in weeks worked relative to their husbands (Table 3). These two source regions were also ranked among the lowest in female–male labour activity (as in Table 1). Married recent-immigrant women from South Asia, another source region with very low female–male labour activity, also ranked low in their own weeks worked and in weeks worked relative to their husbands in 2006. However, while these observations were consistent with expectations, others were not.
Although the Caribbean, South America, Northern Europe, Southern Europe, South Asia, and East Asia all had lower female–male labour activity than Canada by 1981, recent-immigrant wives from these regions had a higher labour activity than Canadian-born married women in that year (Table 3). This inconsistency between the relative status of gender roles in the source region and immigrant women’s labour activity in Canada may reflect the fact that immigrants to Canada are a select group and differ from the average population in their source country. It may also reflect a "family investment strategy" whereby immigrant women seek employment soon after arrival in order to help finance the family during this transitory period (Baker and Benjamin 1997).
From 1981 to 2006, Canadian-born wives increased their labour activity by 50%, both in terms of their own weeks of employment and their share of couples’ total weeks of employment. However, among recent-immigrant wives, there was no increase in weeks worked, and there was only an 11% increase in their share of couples’ total weeks worked. Recent-immigrant wives from the United States and Europe did work more weeks in 2006 than in 1981, but recent-immigrant wives from the Caribbean, South America, Africa, South Asia, and East Asia worked fewer weeks in 2006 than in 1981. The decrease in labour activity among recent-immigrant wives from these less-developed regions is consistent with the growing labour market difficulties experienced by recent immigrants from less-developed regions (Hou 2010; Picot and Sweetman 2012). The fact that recent-immigrant wives from these regions saw their own weeks of employment decline between 1981 and 2006 while their share in couples’ total weeks of employment increased suggests that their husbands experienced even larger decreases in weeks worked over the period. Overall, there were large differences in immigrant wives’ labour activities across source regions (Table 3).
In terms of housework, women from the regions with the lowest female–male labour activity contributed the largest share of couples’ total hours of housework (Table 4). Again, this was most evident among immigrant wives from West Asia/the Middle East and Central America.
Recent-immigrant women from different source regions varied considerably in human capital, and group differences were rather consistent over time (Table 5). In 1981, recent-immigrant wives from the United States, Eastern Europe, and South Asia had the highest rates of university education, ranging from 12% to 14%, while those from Southern Europe and the Caribbean had the lowest rates, at less than 2%. Married recent-immigrant women from different source regions differed considerably in their likelihood of having a Canadian-born husband (Table 5), of being a member of a visible-minority group, or of having French or English as their mother tongue. In this context, the effect of source-country gender roles on immigrant women’s work activities may work through group differences in individual characteristics.
5 Multivariate results
5.1 The effects of source-country gender roles on married immigrant women’s paid labour activities
5.1.1 Labour force participation
Source-country female–male labour activity and female–male education are positively and significantly associated with immigrant wives’ likelihood of participating in the labour force, defined as at least one week of employment in the previous year (Table 6). In Model 1, which includes only source-country variables, a 0.5-point increase in the source-country female–male labour activity ratio, which is close to the difference in the 2006 ratio between China (0.85), at the higher end, and India (0.40) and Pakistan (0.25), at the lower end, is associated with an 8.7-percentage-point increase in immigrant wives’ labour force participation rate (i.e., one-half of the coefficient). A 0.5-point increase in the source-country female–male education ratio, which is close to the difference in the ratio between the Philippines (1.12) and Mali (0.62) in 2006, is associated with an increase of 4.8 percentage points in the labour force participation rate. These results change only slightly when individual characteristics are taken into account (Table 6, Model 2), suggesting that source-country gender roles operate independently of individuals’ human capital and demographic characteristics. Indeed, a 0.5-point increase in the source-country female–male labour activity ratio is associated with a 7.2-percentage-point increase in immigrant wives’ labour force participation rate, and a 0.5-point increase in the source-country female–male education ratio is associated with an increase of 5.1 percentage points in the labour force participation rate (Table 6, Model 2). These are large effects considering the average labour force participation rate in 2006 was 81.4% among married Canadian-born women and 69.1% among married recent-immigrant women (Table 3).
The interaction terms between length of stay and source-country gender role indicators are not statistically significant (Table 6, Model 3), suggesting the effects of source-country gender roles persist for many years. The interaction terms between Canadian-born husbands and source-country female–male labour activity are positive and significant, indicating that the effect of source-country female–male labour activity on immigrant wives’ labour force participation is even stronger when their husbands are Canadian-born. However, the effect of source-country female–male labour activity is weaker when the husband is an immigrant from a different source country.
The effects of two other source-country characteristics—total fertility rate and GDP per capita—are generally small and change from positive, to zero or negative, when individual characteristics are taken into account (Table 6, Model 1 and Model 2). However, the effect of source-country official language is statistically significant and substantial. Even after controlling for individuals’ mother tongue and self-reported ability to speak English or French, immigrant wives from source countries where English or French is an official language have, on average, a labour force participation rate that is 7.5 percentage points higher than that of immigrant wives from source countries where neither English nor French is an official language (Table 6, Model 2).
At the individual level, common-law status, years since landing, and education levels are positively correlated with immigrant wives’ labour force participation, while older age, visible-minority status, presence of young children, husbands’ higher education, and having a husband who is Canadian-born or from a different source country are negatively correlated with immigrant wives’ labour force participation (Table 6, Model 2 and Model 3). A mother tongue other than English or French and not speaking English are also associated with lower labour force participation rates. Immigrant wives who arrived in the 1970s and 1980s tend to have higher labour force participation rates than those who arrived in the late 1990s and early 2000s.
5.1.2 Weeks worked
When "weeks of employment" is used as the outcome variable, source-country female–male labour activity and female–male education both have significant and positive effects (Table 7, Model 1). These effects diminish slightly when individual characteristics are taken into account (Table 7, Model 2). In Model 2, a 0.5-point increase in the source-country female–male labour activity ratio is associated with 4.0 more weeks worked in a year (i.e., one-half of the coefficient), and a 0.5-point increase in the source-country female–male education ratio is associated with 2.5 more weeks worked in a year.
The effects of source-country female–male labour activity and female–male education do not decrease with length of stay in Canada (Table 7, Model 3). The effect of source-country female–male labour activity again varies with the husband’s country of birth. It is strongest when the husband is Canadian-born and weakest when the husband is from a source country different from the wife’s. As shown in Chart 1 and Table 7 (Model 3), when the husband is an immigrant from the same source country as the wife’s, a 0.5-point increase in the source-country female–male labour activity ratio is associated with 4.1 more weeks worked in Canada; the outcome is 5.3 weeks when the husband is Canadian-born and 2.8 weeks when the husband is an immigrant from a source country different from the wife’s. The effect of source-country female–male education on immigrant wives’ weeks worked is reduced when the husband is Canadian-born. As shown in Chart 2, when the husband is an immigrant either from the same source country as the wife’s or from a different source country, a 0.5-point increase in the source-country female–male education ratio is associated with 2.4 more weeks worked. This effect is very small when the husband is Canadian-born.
5.1.3 The share in couples’ total labour supply
Source-country female–male labour activity and female–male education are significantly associated with immigrant wives’ share in couples’ total weeks worked (Table 8, Model 1), although these correlations decrease slightly when individual-level characteristics are taken into account (Table 8, Model 2). A 0.5-point increase in the source-country female–male labour activity ratio is associated with a 0.042-point increase in immigrant wives’ share of couples’ combined weeks of employment (i.e., one-half of the coefficient); this is about 10% of immigrant wives’ average share of couples’ combined weeks of work. Source-country female–male education ratios are more weakly correlated with contributions to total employment, with a 0.5-point increase in the ratio associated with a 0.021-point increase in immigrant wives’ share of couples’ total employment.
The importance of source-country female–male labour activity to immigrant wives’ contribution to couples’ combined employment tends to diminish over time (Table 8, Model 3). As shown in Chart 3, a 0.5-point increase in the source-country female–male labour activity ratio is associated with a 0.046-point increase in wives’ shares of couples’ combined employment among immigrant wives who have been in Canada for 5 years, and with a 0.038-point increase among immigrant wives who have been in Canada for 15 years.
The effect of source-country female–male labour activity on immigrant wives’ labour activity in Canada decreases significantly when their husbands are immigrants from a different source country (Table 8, Model 3). The effect of source-country female–male education does not vary with husbands’ immigrant status or length of stay in the host-country. The effects of two other source-country characteristics, GDP per capita and official language, are statistically significant.
5.2 The effects of source-country gender roles on married immigrant women’s housework
5.2.1 Hours of housework
The effect of source-country female–male labour activity on immigrant wives’ total hours of housework is large and significant (Table 9, Model 1), and the effect changes little when individual characteristics are taken into account (Table 9, Model 2). When individual-level characteristics are controlled for, as in Model 2, a 0.5-point increase in the source-country female–male labour activity is associated with a decrease of 3.8 hours per week in immigrant wives’ housework. The effect of source-country female–male labour activity is about one-half as strong when a married immigrant woman has a Canadian-born husband than when her husband is from the same source country (Table 9 (Model 3) and Chart 4). The effect also tends to weaken slowly with length of stay in Canada. A 0.5-point increase in source-country female–male labour activity is associated with 5.8 hours less housework upon arrival, with this diminishing to 5.2 hours after 5 years, 4.1 hours after 15 years, and 2.5 hours after 30 years in Canada.
The effect of female–male education on immigrant wives’ hours of housework is negative and statistically significant (Table 9, Model 1 and Model 2), suggesting that female representation in secondary school in the country of origin is correlated with fewer hours of housework done by immigrant wives in Canada. Among the other three source-country attributes, only the effect of GDP per capita remains significant after controlling for individual-level characteristics. At the individual level, age, the presence of children, and a mother tongue other than English or French and not speaking either language are associated with more hours of housework among immigrant wives. Common-law status, years since landing, having a Canadian-born husband, and higher levels of education are associated with fewer hours of housework.
5.2.2 The share in couples’ total hours of housework
Source-country female–male labour activity and female–male education are also significantly associated with immigrant wives’ share in couples’ total hours of housework. The higher the source-country female–male labour activity and female–male education, the lower immigrant wives’ shares in family housework (Table 10, Model 1). These effects change little when individual-level characteristics are controlled (Table 10, Model 2). A 0.5-point increase in the source-country female–male labour activity ratio is associated with a 0.033-point decrease in immigrant wives’ share in family housework, while a 0.5-point increase in the source-country female–male education ratio is associated with a 0.022-point decrease.
The effect of source-country female–male labour activity on the share of couples’ total hours of housework declines the longer that immigrant wives’ have resided in Canada (Table 10, Model 3), but the magnitude of the decline is small. The effect of source-country female–male labour activity is diminished when the husband is born in Canada or comes from a country different from the wife’s (Table 10, Model 3). The effect of source-country female–male education does not vary with husbands’ immigration status. The effect also does not change with the length of stay in Canada.
5.3 The effects of source-country gender roles on married immigrant men’s paid and unpaid labour
Thus far, the analysis shows that source-country gender roles are correlated with the share of paid and unpaid labour that immigrant wives assume regardless of their husbands’ immigrant status. However, the question of whether source-country gender roles also affect immigrant men’s paid and unpaid labour remains. Since cross-country variations in the level of traditional gender roles manifest primarily in the relative position of women in the labour market and the family, one might expect that the effect of source-country gender roles on immigrant men would be much weaker.
When immigrant husbands’ share in couples’ total weeks worked or total hours of housework are used as the outcomes, the results are almost the mirror image of the results for immigrant wives (tables are available upon request). Source-country female–male labour activity and female–male education are both negatively and significantly associated with immigrant husbands’ share in couples’ total weeks worked, and are positively associated with immigrant husbands’ share in couples’ total hours of housework. These results also tend to diminish with length of stay in Canada.
Since married women’s share in families’ paid and unpaid labour is jointly determined by wives’ and husbands’ paid and unpaid labour, it is possible that the observed effect of source-country gender roles on immigrant husbands’ share of paid and unpaid labour is driven primarily by the effect on the wives’ own paid and unpaid labour. To confirm this possibility, immigrant husbands’ own weeks worked and hours of housework are used as outcome variables. The results show that the effects of source-country gender roles on immigrant husbands’ own paid and unpaid labour tend to be small, although statistically significant in most cases, and decrease with the length of stay in Canada (tables available upon request). For instance, a 0.5-point increase in the source-country female–male labour activity is associated with 1.4 fewer weeks worked for immigrant husbands upon arrival in Canada. This effect is reduced to 0.7 weeks after 5 years and is close to 0 after 10 years. In comparison, a 0.5-point increase in the source-country female–male labour activity is associated with 4.0 more weeks worked among immigrant women, and this effect remains constant with length of stay in the host country.
Overall, the correlation between source-country characteristics and immigrant husbands’ labour supply decisions weakens far more over time than does the correlation between source-country characteristics and married immigrant women’s labour supply decisions. The same holds for housework. A 0.5-point increase in the source-country female–male labour activity is associated with only 0.4 more hours of housework per week for immigrant husbands upon arrival, with this decreasing to 0.3 additional hours after 5 years, to 0.1 additional hours after 10 years, and to close to 0 additional hours after 15 years. As earlier results showed, the correlation between source-country female–male labour activity and married immigrant women’s housework also decreases over time, but remains substantial even after 30 years in Canada.
6 Conclusions
Women’s paid and unpaid labour activity across countries is influenced by various national-level factors. While cross-country studies provide insight into how different national contexts are associated with women’s labour, information regarding the persistence of traditional gender roles in the absence of institutional and policy constraints is lacking. This study addresses this issue by examining the relationship between indicators of source countries’ typical gender roles and immigrant couples’ labour activities within a host country. Canadian immigrants come from source countries that differ considerably in terms of gender roles, as measured by the ratios of female–male labour activity and female–male education. This provides an opportunity to assess whether cultural norms continue to influence work activities following settlement in a new social, cultural, and institutional milieu.
Source-country female–male labour activity and female–male education are both positively associated with married immigrant women’s labour supply and negatively associated with housework. Married immigrant women from the source regions with the lowest female–male labour activity ratio rank the lowest in terms of weeks worked in Canada. Multivariate models that take into account national- and individual-level characteristics suggest that source-country female–male labour activity is associated with couples’ employment activities in Canada, with this manifested primarily through the outcomes of married immigrant women. This is expected since attitudes and beliefs associated with traditional gender roles are related primarily to the relative positions of women in the labour market and in the family.
The relationship between source-country female–male labour activity and immigrant women’s shares in family paid and unpaid labour tends to decrease with length of stay in Canada, although the magnitude of this decline is small (particularly with regard to housework). Furthermore, the decrease occurs mainly because the correlation with immigrant husbands’ labour supply fades over time. The female–male labour activity effect on housework decreases with years in Canada among both wives and husbands. However, the initial result for husbands is small and diminishes over the 15 years following landing. In comparison, the relationship between female–male labour activity and wives’ housework remains strong even 30 years following landing; this suggests that the influence of source-country gender roles on women persists.
In addition, the relationship between source-country female–male labour activity and married immigrant women’s paid and unpaid labour is reduced, but does not disappear, when immigrant women have immigrant husbands who are not from the same country as themselves. That is, the effect of source-country female–male labour activity is enhanced when married immigrant women and their husbands share the same immigration background, but the effect remains significant even when married immigrant women and their husbands have different immigration backgrounds.
The relationship between source-country female–male education and women’s labour supply is generally weaker than the relationship between source-country female–male labour activity and women’s labour supply. However, the female–male education ratio does have a significant and negative relationship with wives’ share in couples’ total hours of housework. This indicates that immigrant women who arrive from source countries with higher ratios of female–male secondary education experience greater equity with their husbands with respect to their share in the hours of housework performed.
Overall, cultural factors related to gender norms in immigrant women’s source countries appear to have an ongoing influence on immigrant women’s paid and unpaid work in Canada. This suggests that gender roles function somewhat independently of the institutional contexts in which they were formed, and continue to influence individual behavior even after individuals are removed from those institutional contexts. Furthermore, the results reported above suggest that the socioeconomic integration of immigrants is related not only to individual-level human capital and demographic characteristics that are central to immigrant selection criteria, but also to the socioeconomic attributes of the source countries from which immigrants originate.
- Date modified: