Labour‐market participation of Asian Indian immigrant women in the greater Kansas City Metropolitan Area, USA

Immigrants are changing the composition of the American population at the end of the twentieth and into this century, just as they have done for many decades. The amended Immigration and Naturalization Act of 1965 resulted in a steady flow of professional Asian Indians to the United States. While receiving indirect attention in several studies, relatively little is known about the labour-market participation of Asian Indian immigrant women. This research aims to determine the economic and non-economic factors that influence the participation of Asian Indian immigrant women in the labour market of the Greater Kansas City Metropolitan Area. On the basis of 160 responses from a questionnaire survey, this research found that annual income, years in current job, occupation type, and the nature of investment in India were the pertinent economic factors, while non-economic factors range from age, urban residential background, education, number of years in the US, the decision to work, and some perceptions on work, homemaking and household income contribution. Findings from this study are discussed in the context of existing theories on international migration, particularly those dealing with the labour-force participation of immigrants. Copyright © 2002 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.