Women in Britain’s Pakistani diaspora and their relationship with formal and informal Labour, 1962-2002

Thesis

This thesis is a comparative study of British-Pakistani women’s relationship with formal and informal labour in Middlesbrough and Oldham. The period begins in 1962, when the Commonwealth Immigration Act was enacted, and ends in 2002, when the Nationality, Immigration and Asylum Act was implemented and the ‘Life in the United Kingdom’ test was proposed.

Across time and between places and generations, women made decisions about their labour, often to cope with the demands of motherhood, family and community life. Twenty-nine interviewees, who migrated from Pakistan to Middlesbrough and Oldham across the period or grew up in these towns, highlighted how aspirations and opportunities for work changed over time and how their gender, class and race affected their labour experiences. Changes in local labour markets, access to adult education and English literacy, for example, had significant consequences on migrant women’s work choices. Moreover, for second-generation interviewees who were born or grew up in Britain, compulsory education made forms of labour, such as professional work, more accessible. Crucially, every interviewee, both first and second-generation, described how they were not considered economically independent wage-earners and were rarely prepared for formal work. Instead, they were expected to marry as teenagers, have children and undertake domestic responsibilities. For migrant women in particular, who were often non-English speaking and, at times, illiterate, waged employment was largely inaccessible.

Whilst interviewees rarely participated in formal waged labour in a workplace, several women undertook work that was crucial in supporting the long-term settlement of their families and communities. Some of this work was paid, such as self-employment, yet often women described how most of their labour, beyond domestic responsibilities, was unpaid and voluntary. In other words, solely focussing on British-Pakistani women’s formal waged labour participation, rather than acknowledging the breadth of their paid and unpaid work, is both limiting and reductive.

Authors: Din, A

• Type of award: DPhil
• Level of award: Doctoral
• Awarding institution: University of Oxford
• Language: English
• Keywords: oral history; women's employment; British-Pakistani; modern British history; migration; unpaid labour; community history; British-South Asia
• Subjects: History, Modern; Women--Employment--Great Britain--History--20th century; Social history