Gender Differences in Immigrant Assimilation Activities in the US: Evidence from Time-Use Data

Abstract

This study uses the American Time Use Survey for 2003–17 to explore gender differences in time allocated toward activities that facilitate immigrant assimilation, including activities outside the home, with non-family members, and in paid work, education, and shopping. The study finds that among the first and 1.5 generations, respectively, wives spend seventy-nine and thirty-one minutes less per day than husbands in market work, education, and shopping, whereas there is no gender gap among second, 2.5, and third-and-higher generations. Moreover, in first- and 1.5-generation families, husbands spend more time on activities outside the home and with non-family members. This pattern suggests that time used in assimilation activities among first- and 1.5-generation families reflects gender inequality, which could increase women’s dependence on husbands for assimilation. Women from countries with conservative gender roles allocate less time to assimilation activities, but this association dissipates across generations.

HIGHLIGHTS

• This study investigates whether assimilation increases or reduces gender inequality across immigrant generations.

• Time allocation is more gendered among first-generation immigrants.

• There is no such gender gap among second and higher generations.

• Women from countries with traditional gender norms spend less time on assimilation activities.

• But this association dissipates across generations.

KEYWORDS:

• Immigration/migrant families
• gender inequality
• time use

JEL Codes:

• J15
• J16
• J22

SUPPLEMENTAL DATA

Supplemental data for this article can be accessed at https://doi.org/10.1080/13545701.2021.2015538.

Notes

1 Immigrant arrival period is defined in interval form in the ATUS data. We use the midpoint of each arrival period category to determine age at arrival.

2 Kristyn Frank and Feng Hou (2015) examine how source country gender roles influence the gender division of work and household chores among immigrants in Canada and find that source country women–men labor participation ratios and women–men secondary education ratios are positively associated with immigrant wives’ time spent in market work and negatively associated with the time they spend on household chores.

3 Andres J. Vargas (2016) also finds that with time in the US, immigrant men from Mexico increase time on household chores and care and decrease time spent in market work, and immigrant women from Mexico increase their time on caring for household members, decrease leisure time, and maintain the time spent on household chores and market work. These results, however, could be due to selective return migration with less-assimilated men and women deciding to return, resulting in biased estimates of the association between time in the US and patterns of time use.

4 Purchasing are activities coded by ATUS as “consumer purchases,” “professional & personal care services,” “household services,” and travel related to these activities. Household chores are activities coded by ATUS as “household activities” and travel related to these activities.

5 Family is defined as spouse, partner, own child, foster child, grandchild, parent, grandparent, sibling, and other related person.

6 The category “other locations” includes activities largely performed at employment, in vehicles, at stores/malls, and restaurants/bars.

7 We are grateful to Francine Blau for providing us with data from United Nations Statistics Division (UNSD; 2006a, 2006b, 2012) on the labor force participation activity rates for men and women for 1950–2011.

8 Total fertility rates were obtained from the 2012 World Population Prospects of the United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs, Population Division (United Nations 2013). GDP per capita data (purchasing power parity-converted at 2005 constant prices) obtained from the Penn World Table (2015). The source country characteristics were typically available at five-year intervals for the period 1950–2010. The fertility rate in the source country was grouped as follows: < 1950; 1950–9; 1960–4; 1965–9; 1970–4; 1975–9; 1980–4, 1985–9; 1990–4; 1995–9; 2000–4; 2005–14. The labor force participation rate was grouped as follows: < 1950; 1950–9; 1960–4; 1965–9; 1970–4; 1975–9; 1980–3, 1984–7; 1988–93; 1994–7; 1998–2001; 2002–6; 2007–14. The GDP per capita was available annually, which we averaged for each of the following five-year categories: < 1950; 1950–5; 1956–60; 1961–5; 1966–70; 1971–5; 1976–80, 1981–5; 1986–90; 1991–5; 1996–2000; 2001–5; 2006–10. We combined some countries that split or combined between 1980 and 2000 to form a consistent list of source countries. Some countries were combined because data on source-country characteristics were available only in a combined form.

9 Immigrant arrival period is defined in interval form in the ATUS data. We define cohort of arrival dummy variables that are consistent across all rounds of the ATUS: before 1950, 1950–9, 1960–4, 1965–9, 1970–4, 1975–9, 1980–3, 1984–9, 1990–5, 1996–2001, 2002–6, 2007–12, and 2013–4. For the 1st and 1.5 generations, we use the respondent’s period of arrival. For the second and 2.5 generations, we construct corresponding cohorts when the respondent was age 18.

10 Categories representing 2.5 and third-or-higher generations are both omitted because of inclusion of country of origin fixed effects.

11 The 2003–07 ATUS has data from the CPS interview on whether Spanish was the only language spoken by all members of the household aged 15+ years. We do not include this information in our main analyses because it was not available in other ATUS years. However, we did analysis controlling for this variable (categories representing Spanish only, other language, and information not collected) and obtained similar results. To address the concern that gender differences in time spent working among immigrants may be due to gender differences in visa type, with wives often not having work visas, we conducted a supplemental analysis restricted to individuals in the labor force (that is, employed or looking for work) and obtained similar results.

12 We allow the influence of source country per capita GDP and fertility rate to vary by generation of immigration.

13 Models that do not control for marital status yield similar results.

14 In further analysis we tested and found no statistical difference in the gender time gap across major activities between 2.5 generation where the foreign-born parent is a mother and 2.5 generation where the foreign-born parent is a father.

15 We exclude private activities since information on presence of other people during these activities was not collected. Time spent alone is the omitted category in the analysis.

16 ATUS provides data on presence of others while the respondent is engaged in market work and related activities for 2010–17, and not the earlier period.

17 Source country labor force participation of women–men does not have a statistically significant association with time spent on household chores for second-generation men (53.9–81.4 = -27.5, p=0.519).

18 For 1.5 generation: 109.8-88.1=21.7; p=0.789. For second generation: 109.8-98.4=11.4; p=0.913. For 2.5 generation: 109.8-218.2= -108.4; p=0.229.

19 -151.1+96.7=-54.4; p=0.279.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Felix M. Muchomba

Felix Muchomba is Assistant Professor in the School Social Work at Rutgers, the State University of New Jersey. His research examines the effect of policies and institutions on the health and well-being of girls and women.

Neeraj Kaushal

Neeraj Kaushal is Professor of Social Policy at Columbia School of Social Work. She is also a research associate at the National Bureau of Economic Research and a research fellow at IZA, the Institute of Labor Economics. Her research is focused on comparative immigration policy. She is the author of Blaming Immigrants: Nationalism and the Economics of Global Movement, in which she investigates the core causes of rising disaffection towards immigrants globally and tests common complaints against immigration.