Gender-related Needs, Challenges, and Dangers in the Immigration Experience in Israel of Emerging Adults from the Former Soviet Union

Abstract

In-depth interviews were conducted to examine gender-related patterns of adaptation and maladaptation, and the relationship between adaptation and relationships (parents, friends, and romantic partners) for 34 emerging adult immigrants from the Former Soviet Union in Israel. Qualitative analysis highlighted gender-related needs, difficulties, and challenges following the immigration experience. Women's adaptation was connected to mutually supportive and empathic relationships with parents, friends, and romantic partners. Maladaption for women was connected to overly close, nonmutual, and enmeshed relationships with parents, which led to feelings of guilt or to distant relationships that lacked support and intimacy. Adaptation for men was connected to inner strengths that enabled achievement and success in acculturative tasks, which led to feelings of mastery, competence, and self-definition combined with respect and valuing the relationship they have with their family. In contrast, maladaption among men was not connected to relationships but to a lack of inner strengths needed to succeed in developmental and immigration-related tasks. Despite the gender-related distinction found among less adaptive individuals, adaptive young immigrants, women and men alike, were more characterized by an ability to balance between needs of self and needs of others in their family relation-

A comparative study of parental knowledge and adaptation of immigrant youth

“…First, parental knowledge was somewhat more strongly associated with better adaptation outcomes (i.e., lower levels of anxiety and better school grades) among girls than boys in all four sub-groups of immigrants, although a statistically significant connection between parental knowledge and school grades was only found among the largest subsample, i.e., among adolescents with an Eastern European background. This result supports previous studies that speak for the gendered effect of parental knowledge on the adaptation of immigrant adolescents (e.g., Walsh and Shulman 2006).…”

“…Moreover, studies have shown that the intersectionality of gender and ethnic/ cultural background affects academic achievement (Kim and Calzada 2019) and mental health outcomes (Maleku, 2015;Rask 2018). At the same time, from the perspective of immigrant adolescents' adaptation, girls have been suggested to benefit more from the well-functioning communication with their parents than boys (Walsh and Shulman 2006).…”

Understanding the Impact of Poverty on Critical Events in Emerging Adulthood

“…The final limitation relates to the inability to explore issues of race and culture in this study. Given the predominantly White sample, it was not possible to explore these complex issues, even though research indicates that ethnicity impacts this experience (e.g., Badger, Nelson, & Barry, 2006;Walsh & Shulman, 2006).…”