The Experience of Women in Chinese Immigrant Families: An Inquiry into Institutional and Organizational Processes

Abstract

The effects of macrostructural processes (institutional and organizational) on Chinese immigrant women are examined, as well as the effects of Canadian immigration policies, past and present, on middle class Chinese women. Race, gender, and class relations inform and at the same time are informed by the institutional processes of Canadian immigration policies, and such practices are modified and transformed through historical, social and political fluctuations. Using information deriving from in-depth interviews, the everyday experiences of middle class Chinese immigrant women who have recently immigrated from Hong Kong is investigated. How these women's lives have been transformed due to institutional processes, as well as the difference in the social organization of Canadian society vis-a-vis Hong Kong society, are examined.