Return Migration: Changing Roles of Men and Women

This article addresses changes in gender roles among returning migrant families. It focuses on Greek returnees from the Federal Republic of Germany and explores changes in task sharing behavior and gender role attitudes resulting from changes in the sociocultural environments. A group of return migrants was compared with a group of non-migrants both living in villages in the District of Drama Greece. Groups were interviewed to investigate the extent to which each spouse shared house tasks as well as their attitudes towards sharing and gender role in the family. The t-test for independent samples was used to determine mean differences between the two groups. In addition to demographic variables those concerning the "time lived abroad" and the "number of years in Greece" after return were inserted into a series of regression analyses. Findings showed that migrants task sharing and gender role attitudes were influenced differently by the migration-repatriation experience and subsequent cultural alternation. Results also suggest that migrant couples either take on new patterns of behavior or maintain traditional ones only when these were congruent with the financial aims of the family or can be integrated into living conditions in Greece upon return. Furthermore migrants seem to adopt a more "traditional" attitude than non-migrants toward the participation of women in family decision making. From the study it is suggested that gender role change is an on-going process influenced by the migration-repatriation experience as well the factors which accompany movement between the two countries.