Change in Gender Role Attitudes Among East African Immigrants in the Dallas-Fort Worth Metro Area

Keywords: Migration, Gender, Africa.
Session Type: Virtual Poster Abstract
Day: Saturday
Session Start / End Time: 2/26/2022 09:40 AM (Eastern Time (US & Canada)) - 2/26/2022 11:00 AM (Eastern Time (US & Canada))
Room: Virtual 57

Abstract

Migration can have a significant impact on gender roles, norms, and familial structures. Scholars interested in the transformative nature of migration argue that labor force participation plays a central role in shaping gender role attitudes. This work tends to be highly quantitative with an emphasis on the differences between immigrant gender norms and those of the ‘majority’ white population (Khoudja and Fleischmann, 2017; Udah ,2019; Wang, 2019). I believe that an instructive, qualitative approach, attentive to other drivers and influences on gender norms would offer important insights to the existing body of work. In my project, I analyze the drivers behind changing gender role attitudes among East African immigrants in the Dallas-Fort Worth metropolitan area (D-FW). This includes Somali, Kenyan, Eritrean, Ethiopian, Ugandan, Rwandan, Sudanese, and Burundese immigrants. As Texas has the highest population of African immigrants in the United Sates, and the D-FW metro area has the highest population of African immigrants in Texas, this geographic area is uniquely situated as a site to explore and understand these changing dynamics.