Insider Out: Cross-National Differences in Foreign-Born Female Labor Force Participation in the United States, Sweden, and Japan

Abstract

This article assesses the impact of household composition and intermarriage on foreign-born women's labor force participation in Japan, Sweden, and the United States. Whereas previous literature on immigrant integration and intermarriage has treated social integration and labor force participation as tightly interlinked phenomena, we use new and previously unavailable data on Japan and the literature on institutional gender inequality to show that, in some cases, social integration through intermarriage might actually result in lower labor force participation for foreign-born women. We argue that the degree of institutional support for immigrants and families directly affects foreign-born women's labor force participation in the anticipated direction for each country. We argue that these cross-national differences are largely an outcome of differences in the degree of institutional support for working women and families within the host society and help clarify instances where social integration might have negative implications for labor force participation. These findings highlight the importance of accounting for both gender and social context when assessing the role intermarriage plays in receiving country immigrant integration.