Reconstruction of Gender Role in Marriage: Processes among Chinese Immigrant Wives

Abstract

Few studies of gender relations in immigrant families explore under what conditions gender role at one level of analysis is reproduced, revised, or resisted at another level of analysis. The current study aims to examine the complex processes of gender role reconstruction among the Chinese immigrant wives. In contrast to the findings in the studies of immigrant families, whereby traditional gender role ideology was challenged, the majority of Chinese immigrant couples in this particular sample re-created a traditional gender structure at home to respond to the structural constraints caused by immigration and to ease the tension brought by care deficit at work and at home. Marital interactions characterized by Chinese immigrant wives’ self-reflection and their husbands’ confirmation and disconfirmation significantly facilitated the gender role reconstruction.