Migration and Gender Roles: The Typical Work Pattern of the MENA Women1,2

This paper focuses on the association between migration and gender roles measured by women’s paid work. The main migrant group of this study, its context and the method of analysis provide opportunity to meet this objective appropriately. The paper focuses on female migrants from the Middle East and North Africa region, who are often characterized by traditional gender roles including women’s low rates of paid work. The residing country of this migrant group is Australia, which holds different gender roles including women’s high work participation rate. Accordingly, the multivariate results of this paper provide empirical evidence to examine the effects of migration on gender roles.     

Employment Differentials of Second-Generation Muslim Immigrants: Assimilation and Discrimination Hypotheses

Focusing on the status of Muslim women, this paper examines the market employment of the second generation of migrants in multicultural Australia and highlights their differentials with non-Muslims. This group of Muslim women was born and educated in a country clearly characterised by a high level of women's employment. Accordingly, it is theorised that the employment level of second-generation Muslim migrants might also be high as a consequence of assimilation and a greater freedom from religiously ascribed gender roles. The possibility of disadvantage through discrimination is also considered in this analysis. Dealing with assimilation and discrimination hypotheses, the empirical findings of this analysis explain the employment differentials of the second generation of Muslim migrants with non-Muslims in this multicultural setting.     

Women’s employment, religion and multiculturalism: Socio-demographic emphasis

Giving the central focus to ‘religious affiliation’ which ‘was once at the forefront of demographic research (McQuillan 2004: 25), this paper examines the association between religion and women’s market employment. Generally speaking, gender characteristics such as high fertility and low employment levels for Muslim women in both intracountry and worldwide comparisons have been asserted in an extensive literature. The context, method and comparison groups of this study provide the opportunity to examine the longstanding debate as to whether religionper se or other determinants explain such gender characteristics in Islamic settings. It is, however, acknowledged that the present study faces limitations mainly associated with the selectivity of migrants. Using logistic regression and the multicultural context of Australia containing a substantially diverse ethnic composition of Muslims, this paper highlights Muslim/non-Muslim employment differentials. The paper also analyses the employment level of Muslim women across the regions of origin representing various contexts in order to provide empirical evidence to examine the above debate.     

Changing perceptions? Effects of multiple social categorisation on German population’s perception of Muslims

Multiple social categorisation is one option for influencing people’s perception such that negative social opinions based on ethnicity, race, or religion decrease or disappear entirely. This study aims to examine German population’s perception of Muslims when multiple categorisation is applied. Based on data of 7341 respondents stemming from a factorial survey experiment used in a national, random-digit-dial telephone survey, we tested the effect of multiple social categorisation using the hypothetical situation of a Muslim marrying into the own family. Multiple categorisation works only when the Muslim in question is a woman. But perception differences between the Muslim woman and the Christian woman do not totally disappear. When the Muslim person in the same scenario is a man, multiple social categorisation has no effect on the perception of respondents. We discuss the implications of these results with regard to the Muslim as category of analysis.     

Muslim Minority of New Zealand in Global Context: Demographic Perspective

This article focuses specifically on the population of Muslims in New Zealand, and highlights their demographic and socio-economic characteristics in a worldwide comparison. Globally, Islam is the fastest-growing religion and Muslims are the second largest religious group. In particular, the population of Muslim migrants in the multicultural and westerns societies is also remarkably growing fast. This also applies to the multicultural setting of New Zealand where have witnessed a substantially increasing growth of Muslim population during the recent decades. Holding a wide range of ethnic and religious groups from throughout the world as well as a variety of Muslims from different parts of the Islamic world, the multicultural field of this study serve as a unique human and cultural laboratory to approach properly the key research objectives of this analysis. The discussion is mainly based on the customized data of population census. This article specifically addresses the main demographic and socio-economic patterns and differentials associated with the population of Muslims in this multicultural context in a global comparison.     

Migration Differentials in Women's Market Employment: An Empirical and Multicultural Analysis1

This paper examines the differences associated with the patterns and determinants of women's market employment by migration status and ethnic origin. Considering “ethnic employment” as an important issue in the immigrant labor market assimilation approach and migrants’ success in the labor market as a key indication of their settlement in the host country, the results of this paper provide a basis to reassess the patterns and determinants associated with the settlement of female migrants in the multiethnic and multicultural labor market of Australia as “a particularly interesting society in which to examine how immigrant women adapt to [a] new labour market” ( Evans, 1984 :1063).