Making a familial care worker: the gendered exclusion of asylum-seeking women in Denmark

Abstract

The Nordic universalist welfare states place great value on promoting gender equality among immigrant minorities. Yet, as this article demonstrates, there is a tension in the Danish asylum regime between the gender mainstreaming objective that is prominent in the integration discourse and policy and the actual practices of migrant camp employees tasked with activation and preparing asylum seekers for integration into Denmark. Based on four extracts from a qualitative study of the Danish ‘activation’ program for adult asylum seekers, this study identifies the lack of structural and social support for familial care work as the main barrier to the equal access of women to the program’s activities (education and vocational training). I find that the objective of gender equality is thwarted by two primary frames: exceptionalism and bureaucratization. These intersect to reinforce ‘traditional’ gender roles and exclude asylum-seeking women with dependent relatives from out-of-home activities. The findings add to our understanding of how migrant women are excluded from citizenship through subtle and complex forms of power at play in cross-cultural encounters between migrant women and welfare state employees who are individualizing the responsibility for women’s success or failure.

Keywords:

• Activation schemes
• asylum seekers
• citizenship
• exclusion
• gender
• women

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Acknowledgment

The author wishes to thank the study participants, the editor and the anonymous reviewers as well as colleagues Nicole Doerr, Margaretha Järvinen, Cecilie Odgaard and Zachary Whyte.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Katrine Syppli Kohl

Katrine Syppli Kohl holds a PhD in Sociology from the University of Copenhagen. She works as a social researcher on the governance of vulnerable groups in the Danish welfare state, with a special focus on refugees and asylum seekers. Kohl is a skilled qualitative researcher who combines ethnography, semi-structured interviews and document analysis in her studies. She is the author of a number of publications, including a PhD thesis on accommodation and activation of asylum seekers in Denmark, a paper on ambiguous encounters in the Danish activation program for asylum seekers, and a chapter on the integration potential criteria used to select refugees for resettlement in Denmark.