CROSS-BORDER GENDER SYSTEMS? EMPLOYMENT OUTCOMES OF ASIAN INDIAN IMMIGRANTS IN THE UNITED STATES AND CANADA

Abstract

Asian Indians are among the largest immigrant groups in the United States and Canada. However, they neither follow the predictions of traditional spatial assimilation theories about their settlement patterns in the United States. Nor do Asian Indian immigrant women follow the employment projections based on the high levels of human capital they bring to the United States or Canada. For example, in 2016, 62 percent of first-generation Asian Indian women between 25 and 65 were employed, compared to 83 percent of US-born Asian Indian women, even though 79 percent of first-generation Asian Indian women reported having a bachelor’s degree, which was very similar to US-born Asian Indian women (81%) (Ruggles et al., 2025). In Canada, 75% of first-generation Indian women were employed, compared to 88% of Canadian-born South Asian women (Statistics Canada, 2016). Literature has documented that Indian women, living in India, have relatively low labor force participation rates. This dissertation uses explanations from the connections and variations within gender, community norms, and existing structures that offer selection into different types of professions in India, the country of origin, to understand these patterns. Using quantitative data on gender relations, norms, and kinship structures from the India Human Development Survey (2011-12), established data on migration flows, and data on race, ethnicity, languages, and employment from the 2016 American and Canadian Censuses, this dissertation addresses three main questions: 1) Do inter-regional variations in community and gender norms within India continue to explain differences in autonomy and employment rates among Indian women? 2) Is there evidence of variations within ethnolinguistic groups of Asian Indian immigrant women across different countries? Do these differences in employment rates persist over time? 3) How helpful are gender norms transmitted through language in explaining variations in employment patterns for Asian Indian women in the United States and Canada? Results from quantitative analysis in India suggest that the language spoken is strongly associated with household autonomy. Women who speak Southern-Indian languages, especially Malayalam, Tamil, and Kannada, tend to have higher autonomy than women who speak Northern-Indian languages such as Hindi and Urdu. However, language spoken at home was not strongly associated with labor force participation rates, which is consistent with more structural explanations for women’s employment in India. Results from the analysis of Indian immigrant women using the 2016 US Census show that when women migrate to the United States, some language effects observed in India are also observed among first- and second-generation Asian Indian immigrant women, but other advantages that lead to higher autonomy for certain language groups dissipate. Interactions with the migration process reveal recency effects (time of arrival in the United States) and the prioritization of male spouses’ employment in STEM occupations as important factors in explaining unemployment among highly educated Telugu- and Kannada-speaking women. Results from the Canadian Census 2016 show that when Indian women migrate to Canada, migrant networks, especially for Punjabi family-based immigrant women, play a strong explanatory role in predicting employment, whereas economic immigrants, who are presumably higher-skilled, do not necessarily have an advantage. Overall, this dissertation contributes to understanding the factors that drive heterogeneity among Indian immigrant women, both within India and upon immigration to the United States and Canada.