Migrant women speak out about working life in the UK over the last 60 years

Migration to and from the UK has always been a central part of the history of the UK, but according to a new book, previous narratives have largely ignored the everyday experiences of women. An Oxford professor aims to set the record straight, in focussing on the voices of 74 working women who have settled in the UK at different times over the last 60 years. Their accounts document their struggles to overcome discrimination and disadvantage to rebuild their lives.

The book, Migrant Women's Voices: talking about life and work in the UK since 1945, is based on oral histories from face-to-face interviews. They describe their journeys, their lives after migration, and the world of work in factories, hospitals and care homes, banks, hotels, shops, universities or driving buses.

The author Linda McDowell, Professor of Human Geography at the University of Oxford, who received a CBE in the New Year's Honours lists 2016 for services to Geography and Higher Education, collected all the stories through interviewing the women between 1992 and 2012. Their female perspective challenges conventional histories and geographies of post-war change in British society. The book tells of dispossession, hunger, violence and rape, but also the joy of rebuilding lives, establishing families and forging new ties with the community into which they settle.

‘In the increasingly rancorous debates about the impact of migrants and possible Brexit, women migrants are seldom heard,’ Professor McDowell says. ‘More than 70 women tell their stories in their own words, revealing the enormous contribution they have made to this country, not only through their waged work but also through making the UK a more diverse, tolerant country. The migration rhetoric is sometimes negative, particularly recently, but my hope is that these inspiring stories of “ordinary” but inspiring lives will help challenge some of the negativity around the impact of migration in the UK.’

The book includes stories of female refugees who came to Britain at the end of World War II; of the boat people from Vietnam; the migrants from Pakistan and India after independence; those expelled by Ugandan dictator Idi Amin; and refugees who sought sanctuary after the Balkan war at the end of 1990s. Jewish women were given a home and work in the 1930s; and women and men from the Baltic States were transformed from asylum-seekers into what were termed ‘European Volunteer Workers’ and employed to assist in the post-war reconstruction efforts. Others featured include refugees after the Hungarian crisis in 1956, and East African people of South Asian heritage who came over in the mid-1960s.

Professor McDowell said: ‘Some of these women walked halfway across Europe; others struggled in independence movements, seeing their fathers or husbands assassinated for their beliefs. Famine, wars, escape from sexual violence, or the search for employment were reasons for coming here. As economic integration continues and global businesses seek labour across ever wider spaces, migration seems likely to increase. In recent decades woman have been an increasing proportion of the total number and the quiet heroism of their everyday lives deserves far greater recognition.’

The book charts various transformations in the world of work for women migrants: In the immediate post-war years, as many British women were leaving the labour market, women migrants were joining it, some as employees in the newly expanding public sector including the NHS. In the second half of the 20th century, many more women went to work as standards of living rose and a second income became more of a norm. Women stayed at school longer, went to university, and worked for wages for longer periods over their lifetime. By the start of the 21st century, jobs in the services had overtaken manufacturing. In the UK, by 2011, more than eight in every ten women workers were employed in the service sector. Recently, however, the post-crisis austerity programme and cuts in public sector budgets since 2008 have reduced women’s options. The book suggests that migrant women are often in jobs that typically white women preferred not to do, some of them dubbed it the ‘dirty work’ of caring for others. Even migrants who arrived with qualifications found themselves restricted to low-paid work, at least initially. Some women lawyers, bankers and doctors from both Old and New Commonwealth countries have found that their opportunities have been limited because of discrimination on the basis of gender rather than nationality, argues the book.

For an interview with Professor McDowell or for more information, please contact the University of Oxford News office on 01865 280534 or email: [email protected]