Gender Roles at Home and Abroad: The Adaptation of Bangladeshi Immigrants (New Americans (LFB Scholarly Publishing LLC).) (New Americans (Lfb Scholarly Publishing Llc).)

Baluja studies the ways gender roles of Bangladeshi immigrants change after migration. Working with Bangladeshis in Queens, New York, and in corresponding source areas in Bangladesh, she finds that immigrant families maintain some traditional attitudes, but abandon others. For example, immigrants stress traditional images: women’s domestic and childcare responsibilities and husbands’ responsibility for financial support and decision making. Conversely, immigrant women circulate alone in a greater variety of places in New York than do their counterparts in Bangladesh. Traditional behaviors and attitudes are abandoned for practical considerations and a desire to escape cultural constraints. Immigrants’ adaptation process may be self-determined: individuals choose, according to their needs, aspects of both their origin and destination societies. Annotation. Baluja is an analyst with the US Census Bureau, where she specializes in immigrant adaptation, international migration statistics, and cross-cultural health and gender issues. Here she focuses on how the roles and relationships of Bangladeshi husbands and wives change after their migration to the growing Bangladeshi community in Queens, New York. In addition to identifying aspects of family life that have changed, she also looks at those that have remained constant despite immigration. Annotation (c)2003 Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com) Introduction To The Research -- Previous Research On Theoretical Issues -- Bangladeshi Gender Ideology -- History Of Bangladeshi Immigration -- Research Design -- Methodology -- Research Sites -- Gender Role Attitudes -- Female Mobility -- Household Tasks -- Social Networks. Kaari Flagstad Baluja. Includes Bibliographical References (p. 221-238) And Index. International migration involves a shift from one cultural environment in the origin area to a potentially different cultural environment in the destination area.