This study is an attempt to examine contemporary Chinese women immigrants from
Mainland China and their adaptation into Canadian society. In this locally based research,
I focus on how Chinese women integrate into Canadian society as immigrants; how they
identify themselves in the new social context; what factors affect their identification; and
how inherent power relationships between men and women within Chinese society have
been redefined and transformed as the immigrant women assert themselves in the new
society in response to new opportunities and obligations that are presented to them. This
study is based on a series of face-to-face interviews that were chosen through snowball
sampling method. 20 interviews were conducted and the data were qualitatively analyzed.
I found that changes occurred with their multiple identities, which include class identity,
ethnic and cultural identity, and gender identity. Most women experienced downward
mobility in social and economic status after immigration due to lack of appropriate
positions in the labor market and also the feeling of a lack of power as a consequence of
ethnic minority membership; almost all of them have bidimentional cultural identity
which means they identify with some aspects of Canadian culture while maintaining their
Chinese culture of origin; and traditional Chinese gender ideology still plays a main role
in redefining.gender identity which is embodied in the immigration decisions and the
conflict between family and occupation. Economic, educational, occupational, social and
relational power resources are factors affecting the transformation and redefinition of the
power relationship between husband and wife. These factors work together in changing
the allocation of power resources between husband and wife and affect the decision
making process within a family.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:LACETR/oai:collectionscanada.gc.ca:BVAU.2429/12304 |
| Date | 05 1900 |
| Creators | Zhang, Yujie |
| Source Sets | Library and Archives Canada ETDs Repository / Centre d'archives des thèses électroniques de Bibliothèque et Archives Canada |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Electronic Thesis or Dissertation |
| Relation | UBC Retrospective Theses Digitization Project [http://www.library.ubc.ca/archives/retro_theses/] |
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