Bangladeshi Canadian Employee Women Familial Decision-Making Practices in Toronto, Canada

Abstract

Patriarchal values influence women’s lifestyle and decision making autonomy in society although Canada promotes women liberation. Women generally possess low decision making power and are mainly dependent on masculine and/or familial decision making. Women decision-making power in the family is one of the criteria for women development and women empowerment in the family. The study looks at the status of Bangladeshi Canadian women familial decision-making practices in Toronto and the barriers they face to empower themselves in the decision-making process in their families. The survey was conducted face to face on February 23rd and 24th 2010 and the week of March 1st 2010 in Toronto. A total of 60 Bangladeshi Canadian women participated and were from the areas of Scarborough, and East York. Ninety percent of respondents have college/university education and the remaining 10% have high school education only. Twenty-three percent of women themselves make decisions about their day-to-day expenses, but only 17% of women control the income in the family. Sixty percent of women reported their opinions were considered ‘very important’ when buying furniture/electronic goods for the family. In decision making barrier, ethnic family values ranked highest (40%) followed by male dominance barriers are (20%). To overcome these decision making barriers, 47% women felt they needed support from all family members in terms of cooperation and participation in family decisions. Hence women familial decision-making practices in Toronto still influenced by their male partners and family values.
Keywords: Cronbach alpha, Family expenditure, Household income, Income & expenditures decision making process, Patriarchy, Rasch model.