Coping with Crisis: Social Supports and Constraints Afforded to Ethnic Minority Women in Ireland

Abstract

Times of economic crisis are difficult for everyone, but are perhaps most difficult for immigrants, because as jobs are lost and social supports are stripped away, immigrants are amongst the first groups to be targeted. A commonly observed accompaniment of economic crisis is increased ethnocentrism as the majority group seeks to protect its threatened interests. Social identity thus marks ethnic minorities and immigrants as targets of prejudice and discrimination, but it is also an important source of social support, which becomes all the more valuable during tough economic times. Using Deaux’s tripolar (2006) model of the immigrant experience as our framework, we conducted two studies to examine the ways in which African and Asian immigrant women in Ireland negotiate social identities in the context of economic crisis, social exclusion, and racial discrimination. The results indicate that Asian and African immigrant women in Ireland experience moderate levels of social exclusion and marginalization, and that asylum seekers experiences are more extreme than those who have achieved residency. Importantly, the experience of social exclusion and marginalization predicts psychiatric symptoms and lower global well-being. These results are discussed in relation to social psychological theory and social policy.