DECISION MAKING AND EMPOWERMENT

Sassen (2006) suggests that women gain increased control over decision making in the domestic sphere when they gain access to wage employment and greater participation in the

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public sphere. Decision making for Eritrean immigrants’ in the study involves a gendered practice that represents power relations between women and men in the household shaping their rights and ability to make choices and control resources. Based on gender norms in Norwegian society, women are encouraged to actively participate in the public domain and have equal access to resources as men to encourage female autonomy and economic independence. Thus, Eritrean immigrant women have the agency to participate in education and paid work thereby challenging patriarchal relations and improving their position in the home allowing them to gain power in decision making. Understanding this process of women gaining power in decision making reflects the concept of ‘power to’ by Rowlands (1997), implying that women are able to generate power through various engagements involving their agency which enables them to resist or maneuver against domination.

The interviewed Eritrean immigrants’ decision-making process occurring in the home concerning domestic labour and child care, influences women’s participation outside the home.

Women’s agency often relies on their household relations where changes to the division of labour emerge from their participation outside the home where they gain power, enabling them to transform their position in the decision-making process. Through women’s paid work involvement, they can make contributions to the household income, and this improves their status in the home and decision making power (Grasmuck and Pessar, 1991).

Based on the study findings, Eritrean men are often the first to migrate to Norway and this gives them power over the decision-making process in the household even after they have integrated into the Norwegian society. Given this case, when women are reunited with their spouse, they often do not have power in decision making concerning household resources and repeat their existing gender relations. Again, this condition highlights Rowlands (1997) empowerment theory, that men’s patriarchal gender ideologies influence women’s participation in the decision-making process in the household. However, as societal and institutional norms support immigrant women’s access to resources like education and paid work, they adopt gender ideologies regarding egalitarian relations in the Norwegian society and can gain the power to challenge men’s position in decision-making processes.

Even though men’s position in decision making is challenged, they are able to adopt strategies to reassert their power in the household. In the study, women’s familial relations aid their integration process by supporting their ability to gain language skills, social networks, and paid-work opportunities, corresponding with Spencer and Charsley’s (2016) integration theory.

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Thus, women’s ability to gain power in the decision-making process often requires support from their spouse in the integration process, which shapes gender relations supporting the man’s status. This relates to Hondagneu-Sotelo and Cranford’s (2006) premise of the contradictions in women’s power status that follows migration. Even when women often gain status relative to men in some aspects, men generally benefit from their status as men (ibid.).

Thus, Eritrean men are empowered through the practice of aiding their spouse in her integration process which increases their power in decision making in the household.

Differences in decision-making processes among Eritrean immigrant households in the study could also be explained in light of choices and constraints faced by women in the family using Hakim’s (2000) lifestyle preference theory. In the study, three of the sampled Eritrean women already had some power in decision making in the household because of their educational background and work experience from Eritrea. This aided their continuation of role negotiations with their spouse in Norway. These women were able to make use of available resources in Norway like pursuing higher education due to relevant educational background from Eritrea. This improved their access to paid work, advancing their gender relations towards the Norwegian gender model like in equal sharing of domestic and caring roles. This category of women is able to participate in full-time paid work enabling them to make contributions to the household income and shift towards a ‘double breadwinning’ household. Because the women were able to effectively utilize their agency, they gained much power in the household, allowing them to participate in decision making regarding household income, child care, and external decision making. Thus, Eritrean women’s agency in terms of resource access exemplifies Hakim’s (2000) theory of ‘work-centered women’.

A significant number of Eritrean immigrant women in the sample experienced constraints due to gender differences from Eritrea which affected their empowerment in Norwegian society.

These women were unable to trigger role negotiation with their spouses. Although generally Eritrean women in the study are able to achieve integration in certain aspects like language skills and paid work, for most women, their level of integration was not sufficient to gain power relative to their spouse and transform decision making in the household. In terms of paid-work, eight of the 11 sampled Eritrean women were in part-time paid work because of role expectations in the household. Hence, they were constrained by a lack of choice and had to couple household obligations with paid work. Due to women’s paid work status, they were unable to match the household income contribution of their spouses who are either in fully paid work or working several jobs giving them more control over the household expenditures. This

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affects their position in decision making because they are incapable of challenging men’s

‘breadwinner’ status improving his position in decision making. This circumstance describes these immigrant women as ‘adaptive women’ by Hakim (2000): women adapting to their position in part-time work to make time for family responsibilities.

Eritrean women’s empowerment in the household is facilitated by their participation outside the home where they gain access to resources such as income from paid work and social networks suggesting the empowerment theory by Kabeer (1999). Although most Eritrean women have similar opportunities in the Norwegian society, they face different outcomes in decision making both from the private and public sphere, which relates to factors such as their educational background, work experience, number of children, and access to paid work.

Referring to the eight sampled women working part-time, their possibility to achieve higher levels of empowerment is constrained by factors such as domestic roles, education, child care, and patriarchal gender ideologies which relate to other studies by McRae (2003a, 2003b).