Doctoral Dissertation Research: Constrained Choices: Negotiating Work, Family, and Legality

University Of North Carolina At Chapel Hill, Chapel Hill NC

Investigators

Abstract

SES-1602352 Jacqueline Hagan Holly K. Straut Eppsteiner University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill A large body of work-family scholarship has evolved to examine how women in the United States make decisions related to work and family. Yet despite the significant presence of female immigrants in the United States, few studies have examined these issues among foreign-born women, particularly the five million women who are undocumented. Undocumented, foreign-born women have lower labor force participation rates than their male counterparts, documented immigrant women, and native-born women. To examine how foreign-born Latina women make decisions about work and family under precarious legal conditions, this doctoral dissertation research examines three questions: 1) How do Latina immigrant women?s legal status and family structure shape their labor force decisions and opportunities within new destination communities in the United States? 2) How do Latina immigrants negotiate motherhood under conditions of precarious legal status? 3) How do women in a new destination community interpret and respond to shifting immigration policies and contexts of reception at federal, state, and local levels? To answer these questions, the co-PI is conducting in-depth interviews with Latina immigrant mothers in central North Carolina and participant observation at community meetings that discuss immigration programs and policies. This project will contribute to sociological knowledge by bridging the work-family and international migration literatures, developing understanding of women's labor force decisions in new immigrant destinations in the United States, and generating new understanding of gender and international migration policy. These findings will be relevant for scholars of international migration, gender, and work and occupations, as well as policymakers at local, state, and federal levels and immigrant-serving organizations. This research is particularly important at a time when different levels of the U.S. government are seeking to address rights and regulations related to the undocumented population and members of mixed-status families.