Report highlights barriers Asian American women face towards economic mobility

Gender expectations, family obligations, immigrant experiences, financial abuse in relationships, generational wealth and retirement planning were among the challenges Asian American women face when it comes to economic mobility, according to a new report released by theNational Asian Pacific American Women’s Forum.

The qualitative study, Clocking Inequality: Understanding Economic Inequity, the Wage Gap, and Workplace Experiences of Asian American, Native Hawaiian, and Pacific Islander Women, was a culmination of key informant interviews and in-depth interviews conducted with 28 AANHPI women and cisgender and gender-expansive people. 

The new report is the organization’s latest initiative to collect data and hone in on specific community experiences, as the AANHPI community chronically suffers from a lack of disaggregated data. The findings from the report also help to debunk the “model minority” myth, which stereotypes all Asian Americans as successful and hides the actual needs of the community. 

“There's just a huge lack of comprehensive data on the pay gaps that are experienced by AANHPI women and the ways in which those pay gaps impact their economic mobility and their quality of life, which makes it really hard to understand the depth of the problem,” said Sydelle Barreto, policy manager at the Forum.

“And we can't fight economic injustice if we don't have an understanding of how deeply it's affecting this community and their families. What was important for us to highlight is that not all AANHPI women are impacted equally by wage disparities. While we are starting to get more disaggregated data, there are still definitely some gaps, so we're hopeful that our report will help fill these gaps.”

A grant from the Korean American Community Foundation paid for the study. Organizations, such as Apna Ghar, Bangladeshi American Women’s Development Initiative, Empowering Pacific Islander Communities, Heart Women and Girls, Jahajee, KAN-WIN, and the Laotian American National Alliance, provided participants for the analysis. 

Some specific experiences captured in the report include the challenges of financially supporting family members, which hinders economic stability and growth, and financial abuse, which is particularly prevalent within personal relationships that are tied to immigration status. 

The report includes potential solutions and policy recommendations, such as funding for childcare and other salient social services, improved workplace policies (such as parental leave), and improved data collection.

“The experiences of these women are often overlooked,” Barreto told New York Nonprofit Media. “They're told their stories aren't important, and while the broader themes that came out of the study were familiar…illuminating what those challenges were and how they showed up in the lives of a diverse range of AANHPI women was really significant.