ABSTRACT
Objective
This study examines how US immigration policies shape family and work decision-making among immigrant women employed in professional occupations who hold lawful immigration status.
Background
Research documents the family-related consequences of immigration policies for undocumented, mixed-status, and separated immigrant families. This study adopts a life course perspective to investigate policy impacts for immigrant women in professional occupations during early adulthood.
Method
The study analyzes 29 in-depth interviews with Indian and Chinese immigrant women ages 25 and older working in the US tech sector. Interviews covered life histories, migration, employment, relationships, family, and future plans. Analyses followed modified grounded theory methodology.
Results
Participant narratives revealed that family-related visa stipulations, administrative burdens, and employment restrictions intervened in family and work decision-making. These mechanisms constrained relationships, childbearing, caregiving, and access to flexible work, with implications for life course timing and sequencing. Women exercised agency in navigating constraints, and impacts varied by nationality and employer practices.
Conclusion
The findings advance understanding of immigration, family development, and the life course and delineate the differentiated impacts of immigration policies. Participant accounts complicate linear readings of life course trajectories and underscore the temporal dimensions of migration that heighten policy-related family impacts. Policy intervened primarily through bureaucratic and regulatory mechanisms, rather than enforcement or social exclusion emphasized in past research. Women enacted agency, albeit more limited than that of US citizens, in ways foreclosed to those in other visa categories or with undocumented status.