Socio-Demographic Study of the Association between Identity and Migration

This article examines the effects of international migration on gender identity. As migration often provides opportunities for changes, the key question here is whether and to what extent migration leads to change in gender identity. In particular, the study focuses on the status of those female immigrants who have been exposed to two typically different patterns of gender identity in the origin and the destination societies. The article also highlights other important factors affecting the transition process of gender identity upon migration. Using the model suggested by K. Davis (1984), this study employs female labour force participation to measure gender identity.
Generally, the multivariate results of this study based on logistic regression analysis emphasis on the two key points. First, the association between migration and gender identity tends to be mainly explained by the "socio-cultural distance" between the origin and the destination societies, termed by Berry (1992) and Chiswick et al. (2003). The results show that the distance between the origin and the destination societies determines significantly the effect of migration to change gender identity: the greater the former, the less important the latter. Second, although both language skills and duration of residence in the destination country have positive effects on the status and success of all immigrant groups irrespective of their ethnic backgrounds, the effects vary markedly by the "socio-cultural distance". This means that those female immigrants who experience greater "socio-cultural distance" between the origin and the destination societies are more benefited in the labour market from both the longer duration of residence and better language skills. This echoes the fact that these two factors play key roles to narrow increasingly the gap between immigrants' origin and destination societies (i.e. "acculturation": Gordon 1968), that also lead to improve their status and success in the new society and its labour market.