Origin-country Culture, Sequencing of Migration, and Female Employment: Variations among Immigrant Women in the United States

• In Event: 4355 - Regular Session: Immigration and Gender

Abstract

Recent studies of labor force participation among foreign-born women suggest patterns that resemble those in immigrants’ origin countries. This perspective overlooks the potential role of migrant selectivity in shaping the labor force participation of female migrants independently of sending-country culture in a way that can modify its influence for a subset of self-selected migrants. Yet not all female migrants self-select on the basis of employment opportunities to the same extent. We propose “sequencing of migration” (the timing of married partners’ respective migrations) as a proxy for female migrant selectivity with respect to gender role beliefs and work incentives: individual (unmarried) migrants and female lead migrants are more likely to be motivated by labor market opportunities or human capital formation than female tied migrants. Our analysis of labor market participation of female immigrants to the United States from 130 countries confirms that sending-country cultural legacies predict the employment status more strongly for tied migrants than for independent or lead migrants. Our findings demonstrate that the impact of sending-country culture varies systematically across subgroups of migrants in theoretically coherent and empirically measurable ways.

Authors

• Qian He, University of Wisconsin-Madison

• Theodore P. Gerber, University of Wisconsin-Madison