1996/97 PCERII Funded Research Abstract
Research Title: Coping Strategies, Employment Status and Relationship Stability of Immigrant Couples
Research Team:
Research Domain(s): Social
Gender roles are universal and they are found in every society. However the distinctness of male and female gender roles and their implications for the household division of labour, participation in the paid labour force, and family relationships are culturally specific.
Migration to a new culture often includes a disruption of familiar gender roles and a need to adapt to new ones. Changes in the economic status of the family and in the relative economic power of men and women in families underlie this disruption. Some couples adapt easily to new roles and expectations and others experience stress, alienation and inability to cope with the changes in positive ways. Sometimes negative coping strategies, such as abuse, controlling behaviour, desertion or dissolution of marital relations result from the lack of skill or knowledge of alternative ways of coping.
Research on immigrant couples adapting to North American culture frequently mentions marital problems and the stress of changing gender norms as significant issues. Few action research studies have explored the bases of these issues - why they happen, and how they manifest themselves, and the coping strategies that couples use to deal with them. The need to understand the relationships between the behaviours, such as spousal abuse, and the issues, such as the change in gender norms, has been expressed by many front-line workers in immigration service agencies. In a recent consultation meeting with the Immigration and the Metropolis project at the federal level, several federal departments identified the need to look at the impact of changing gender norms and expectations on relations in immigrant families.
Through interviews with both members of immigrant couples in Edmonton we hope to be able to identify the positive and negative coping strategies that they have employed in their adjustment to Canadian culture to deal with the shifts in gender roles and expectations. These changes in gender expectations can have profound effects on the stability of the family and be real barriers to their ability to adapt and be productive.
This study will provide some understanding of these issues as they are experienced by immigrant couples in Edmonton and some suggested strategies for effective intervention by counsellors and settlement workers.