Ghanaian Women in Toronto's Labour Market: Negotiating Gendered Roles and Transnational Household Strategies

ABSTRACT/RESUME Research in the labour market experiences of immigrant women in Canada has tended to concentrate on how their experiences assist or hinder their integration into Canadian society. Less attention has been given to how women's links to their home communities affect or are affected by their labour market experiences in Canada. Using the transnational perspective to analyze the labour market experiences of Ghanaian women in Toronto, this study reveals that women's work is crucial to the reproduction of families and households in Canada and Ghana. The economic uncertainties these women encountered in the Canadian labour market have propelled them to develop coping strategies that include negotiating gendered ideology and roles, and maintaining strong ties with their communities of origin. La recherche surles experiences des femmes immigrantes sur le marche du travail au Canada s'est jusqu' alors essentiellement concentree sur comment leurs experiences aidaient ou limitaient leur integration dans la societe canadienne. Beaucoup moms d' attention a ete donnee sur comment les liens de ces femmes avec leurs communautes d' origine sont affectes ou ont ete affectes par leurs experiences sur le marche du travail au Canada. Grace une approche transnationale pour analyser les experiences des femmes ghanecones sur le marche du travail a Toronto, cetde etude revele que le travail des femmes est essentiel au developpement durable des families au Canada ainsi qu' au Ghana. La precarite economique que ces femmes rencontrent sur le marche du travail canadien, les a conduit a developper de nouvelles strategies et notamment a modifier leur ideologie, le role homme femme a l' interieur du cercle familial et a maintenir des liens etroits avec leurs communautes d' origine. Introduction Important links exist between immigrant women and their countries of origin. These links have been neglected in the migration literature that has focused primarily on women's labour market experiences and their problems of adaptation or integration into host societies (Bakan and Stasiulis 1997; Boyd 1985, 1990; Grant and Oertel 1999; Man 1997; Preston and Giles 1995). Researchers have emphasized the importance of social networks in the diverse social and economic facets of the lives of immigrant women (Greenwell et al. 1997; Hagan 1998; Rose et al. 1998). Yet, researchers have overlooked the networks immigrant women maintain across national boundaries, which have considerable bearing on the process of integration. This oversight in the migration literature is problematic, given that immigrant women in their everyday lives often become socially and spatially marginalized while maintaining links to their home country that serve as strategic resources for them. Contrary to Canada's official multicultural policy of inclusion and pluralism, many new immigrants have achieved neither a comfortable level of integration nor the level of prosperity they expected. Nolin Hanlon and Kobayashi (1998) argue that these immigrants are also the most likely to maintain strong ties to their home countries. Researchers have largely ignored African immigrant populations in Canada, focusing more on European, Asian, and Caribbean migrants, despite the long history of migration from Africa that has created a vast African diaspora (Lake 1995). The economic, social, and political crises in many African countries over the last three decades have triggered a mass movement of people searching for more favorable opportunities. Canada has become a major country of destination for many African migrants since the 1970s. According to the 1996 Census (Statistics Canada, 1998), of the 1,054,190 immigrants who arrived in Canada prior to 1961, only 4,945 were Africans, representing 0.5 percent of the total number of immigrants. Between 1961 and 1970, 25,685 Africans arrived in Canada. They represented 3.3 percent of all immigrants (788,580) arriving during that period. …

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