Changing gender roles among Pakistani Muslim immigrant working women

Pakistan has a patriarchal society system, presenting women as subordinate to men and men are considered as primary authority figures. It causes serious repercussions on women and men’s life scenarios. However, Pakistani women on migration to Canada experience changes in the gendered roles prescribed in their heritage society. Such changes result in a double workload for Pakistani women working in both the public and domestic sectors. Existing studies show that doing a second shift results in strains, stresses and extra work to cope with domestic chores and outside jobs. The main objective of the research is to explore the workloads and implications of life prospects in married Pakistani Muslim immigrant working-women residing in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. The collection of data will start with participants reading and signing the consent forms- to participate and be audio-recorded. Following, a short socio-demographic questionnaire will be administered to garner background information. The questionnaire will include questions on age, level of education, occupation or work in Pakistan and Canada, income, number of children, years of marriage, years in Canada, number of persons living in household and immigration status. The researcher will personally conduct the interviews using pseudonyms for audio recording. Tapes will be transcribed verbatim and stored using the same pseudonyms. Finally, the thematic analysis will be used to analyze the data. Emerging themes and patterns will be identified and sorted. Those patterns will be catalogued into subthemes that will be interpreted within the context of relevant literature, in order to build a valid argument and description of the data