Diverging by Gender: Syrian Refugees’ Divisions of Labor and Formation of Human Capital in the United States

Abstract

In this article, I examine how Syrian refugee men and women shifted their household divisions of labor in their initial years of resettlement in the United States. I combine and extend relational approaches from gender theory and economic sociology to examine how men and women's behaviors shifted, the resources engendered by behavioral shifts, and how they interpreted and compensated for new behaviors and resources. I show that shifts in Syrian household divisions of labor occurred at the intersection of inequalities in social policies, labor-markets and households. Due to limited social assistance, the refugee families needed to earn an income within months of their arrival. The Syrian men entered the labor-market, keeping with a breadwinning expectation for their labor, but could only access menial jobs that limited their time and opportunity learn English. Women, meanwhile, did not enter the labor-market full time, and could attend English classes. By observing this divergence in men and women's language learning, I theorize human capital as a gendered outcome of household divisions of labor.

A New Beginning: Early Refugee Integration in the United States

“…One factor behind this closer alignment between the actual number of refugee admissions and the annual refugee quota was the higher need for refugee resettlement worldwide. In response, President Obama designated a ceiling of eighty-five thousand in 2016 and of one hundred ten thousand in 2017-a 57 percent increase over 2015-prompted partially by the Syrian refugee crisis, which displaced more than five million people (Gowayed 2019).…”

Refugee Integration in Canada, Europe, and the United States: Perspectives from Research

“…For a comprehensive review of all studies about immigrants, refugees, and U.S. assimilation, see Waters and Pineau (2015). In addition to the studies on U.S. refugees described below, see Gold (1992), Gurung (2015), Besteman (2016), Chambers (2017), Gowayed (2019), and Ludwig (2019).…”

Refugees without Assistance: English-Language Attainment and Economic Outcomes in the Early Twentieth Century

“…In the modern period, refugees also benefit from the fact that they enter the US with permanent legal residence (Portes and Rumbaut 2001;Alba and Nee 2003). Although, in some cases, financial assistance is minimal given structural and resource constraints of resettlement agencies (Fee 2019;Fee and Arar 2019;Gowayed 2019), the positive governmental reception and legal status alone are assumed to facilitate refugee integration. Akresh 2008;Tran and Lara-Garcia 2020).…”

“…Beyond exposure, however, the ability to learn a new language is also associated with age at arrival because younger individuals can learn new languages easier than older individuals (Espenshade and Fu 1997;Chiswick and Miller 2001;Bean and Stevens 2003;Bleakley and Chin 2004). School attendance or attendance at formal language classes in the host society will also improve destination-language since it exposes individuals to the structure and grammar of the language (Lleras- Muney and Shertzer 2015;Gowayed 2019;Carter 2009;Arendt, et al 2020).…”