Introduction

Issues related to the integration of refugees and migrants have been a central concern in policy discussions in the Global North. Even though existing studies highlight the multi-dimensionality of integration (Ager & Strang, 2008; Lomba, 2010; Zetter et al., 2002), policy makers in the Global North have placed much emphasis on the tangible, functional dimensions of integration such as access to housing, employment, and improvement of language proficiency (Korac, 2009; Phillimore, 2012). Yet, these foci can overshadow socio-cultural adjustments encountered by newly resettled populations from different backgrounds. In particular, as Cheung and Phillimore (2017, p. 212) highlight, most research undertaken to date has been ‘gender-blind’, failing to adequately address the gender dimension and consequently making invisible the different experiences encountered by male and female refugees.Footnote 1 This knowledge gap in the gendered aspect of integration is significant for both policy and scholarship in order to nurture a holistic understanding of the integration process for refugees. Drawing on qualitative research with Syrian refugee families resettled in Oxfordshire, UK, this article poses the following central research question: What challenges do individual family members face in the process of integration into a new socio-cultural environment in the UK, and to what extent do they adjust to these changes?

The central conceptual framework of this study is integration. In particular, our research makes contributions to the issues of gender subjectivity vis-à-vis refugees’ integration in both policy and scholarship, especially in the context of Syrian refugees—the worlds’ largest refugee population currently. While some studies have examined the gendered differences in relation to Syrian refugees’ experiences in neighbouring asylum countries such as Jordan, Lebanon, and Turkey (see Lokot, 2018; Asaf, 2017; El-Masri et al., 2013; Cankurtaran, 2019), this research adds new empirical material in relation to the UK context and reveals significant transformations regarding gender subjectivities and practices amongst Syrian refugees upon their arrival in the country. As other related studies conclude, we mainly found that these changes in gender roles and responsibilities often resulted in confusion, disputes, and tension between wives and husbands (also see Khawaja & Milner, 2012; Losoncz, 2019; Renzaho et al., 2011; Kibria, 1993; Menjivar, 1999); although, in a few cases, these new gender roles resulted in new levels of respect between couples. Mostly taking place in the ‘private sphere’ of each family, crucially, these transformations occur with little assistance from host governments and supporting organisations. Exploring these changes in gender dynamics, the article not only highlights the importance of ‘gender-sensitivity’ in integration support in policy-making but also ultimately proposes a more holistic understanding of refugee integration by shedding more light on the socio-cultural dimension of integration. This understanding can elucidate the complex nature of integration and also provides crucial knowledge for facilitating and supporting the smooth adjustment of refugees into a very different living environment.

The data for this article is based on research with Syrian refugee families who came to Oxfordshire in the UK via the Syrian Vulnerable Person Resettlement Scheme (SVPRS). Due to the civil war in Syria starting in 2011, the number of refugees fleeing from Syria has reached 6.7 million (UNHCR, 2019). In response to the nearly 1 million Syrian refugees who migrated to Europe, the UK government announced the launching of the SVPRS in 2014 with the aim of providing a safe and legal route to the UK for up to 20,000 Syrian refugees by 2020 (McGuinness, 2017). According to media sources, as of 2019, there have been over 16,000 refugees resettled across the UK through SVPRS (Dearden, 2019). Following the launching of SVPRS, Oxford City Council first passed a proposal in 2015 to accept Syrian refugee families each year, and other local districts followed. As of 2019, nearly 50 families have been received in wider Oxfordshire via the scheme, after first seeking asylum in Syria’s neighbouring countries including Jordan, Lebanon, and Turkey (Oxford City Council staff member, July 2019).

This article is structured as follows: the next section presents an overview of literature on refugee integration, especially regarding gender reconfigurations. Then, it gives a contextual background of the SVPRS families who came to Oxfordshire, including their pre-displacement life in Syria. Next, following a brief methodology section, the paper presents the main findings regarding refugees’ experiences related to changes in gender roles and responsibilities in the UK. Finally, it provides some implications that emerge from the findings.

Integration and Gender Reconfigurations

Integration

This article situates the concept of integration as a main analytical framework. Policy and scholarly debates on the integration of migrants have been ongoing for the last several decades (Meissner and Heil, 2020). Yet, since around the emergence of the so-called refugee crisis of 2015–2016, the issue of how to integrate refugees has become ever more important in the Global North (Phillimore, 2021).

Despite years of debate and extensive use in migration policy, ‘integration’ remains a highly contested, complex, and fluid concept (Cheung & Phillimore, 2017; Korac, 2009; Lomba, 2010; Phillimore, 2012). While there is no universally agreed definition, this article employs the one proposed by the Organisation for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE). In their Guidelines on Integration of Diverse Societies (2012), integration is depicted as a dynamic, two-way process of mutual engagement, requiring efforts not only by immigrants and the host community, but also by national and local authorities.

Current scholarship emphasises the complicated, multi-faceted nature of integration processes experienced by refugees and migrants. Ager and Strang (2008) have developed one of the most cited and widely used integration frameworks, attempting to identify key indicators of successful integration. The framework defines successful integration through accomplishments related to four fields: (1) access to employment, housing, education, and health; (2) facilitators and barriers—language, culture, and the local environment; (3) social connections within the community and with other groups and institutions; and (4) foundation—access to citizenship and rights.

While the conceptual model presented by Ager and Strang is useful as a generic framework for understanding integration, it contains gaps. For instance, although the framework places a significant emphasis on functional indicators, it gives limited attention to the ‘private sphere’ of integration, defined as the importance of adjusting one’s original cultural and religious values and views to the society in which they are received. As Şimşek (2017, 2020) highlights, integration entails the shifting of identities and cultures between past and present, and constructing relationships with peers in receiving societies, moving beyond Ager and Strang’s examination of more easily measurable variables.

Furthermore, their model seems to examine the collective refugee household as the primary unit of analysis, which can erase the perspectives of individuals—wives, husbands, and children, for instance—who have different roles and responsibilities within the household. Analysis of integration processes should centre the experiences and perspectives of individual family members and how they each perceive their adjustment into a new living environment (Şimşek, 2017, 2020). As the subsequent section shows, the process of integration does not necessarily affect men in the same way as it does women.

Changes in Gender Norms and Roles

Displacement is typically considered to cause disruption in peoples’ lives, but it can also generate ‘positive’ changes, including gender empowerment (Asaf, 2017; Fiddian-Qasmiyeh, 2014). Separation from traditional social systems can lead to experiences in exile that provide space for possibilities of ‘(re)construction and (re)negotiation of gender and other social relations’ (Grabska, 2011, p. 81). Research shows that dramatic changes in gender norms and roles enable refugee women to gain new freedom and mobility. For example, forced migration often allows refugee women to seek further education and employment, which enhances their autonomy, self-confidence, and participation in household decision-making (Matsuoka & Sorensen, 1999). Some women also take on new knowledge from aid organisations regarding their rights and legislation that protects them from abuse and exploitation (Lukunka, 2011).

Consequently, forced migration can create situations in which women and men must confront a variety of new gendered roles and tasks in order to survive and support their family members in a new social and legal environment (Asaf, 2017; Donaldson & Howson, 2009; Koyama, 2014; Lokot, 2018). According to Nasser-Eddin (2017), women are required to become heads of the household, especially in cases where men go missing or become unable to provide for their families. For refugee women who move to the Global North, there may be a need to join the workforce since a second income is often necessary to support the family due to higher living costs (Renzaho et al., 2011).

However, these changes in gender roles can sometimes conflict with men’s and women’s pre-existing behaviours defined by cultural or religious norms and practices in their home country (see Gowayed, 2019 and Kibria, 1993). In particular, emerging economic needs may precipitate relational changes between husbands and wives, affecting dynamics in ‘intra-household processes’ (Mahmud, 2003). For instance, amongst South Sudanese refugees resettled in Australia, the management of family finances caused tension between couples (Khawaja & Milner, 2012). Because both wives and husbands were individually receiving government assistance as their only source of income, disagreements arose between them about who was to manage the family finances and how to spend the government stipend.

Marital relations can sometimes become strained as gender roles and responsibilities start to change. In contrast to sometimes expanded opportunities and responsibilities for women, forced migration often constricts men by changing their traditional status and role (Donaldson & Howson, 2009; Marlowe, 2012). According to Grabska and Fanjoy’s (2015) research on refugees in Canada, for many men, displacement meant losing their privileged position in the household and in the community since they were challenged by gender equality discourses and the increasing authority of women. Male adult refugees were often expected to be involved in unfamiliar domestic activities such as cooking, cleaning, doing laundry, and assisting with children’s school activities, and, by extension, lost their culturally treasured role as the household breadwinner (Matsuoka & Sorensen, 1999; Nasser-Eddin, 2017).Footnote 2 Consequently, these male refugees expressed feeling a lack of achievement, as well as frustration and low self-esteem. In addition, resettled refugee couples mostly have to deal with these internal issues stemming from reconfigurations in cultural practices in the absence of their senior family members who typically function as ‘mediators’ for family conflicts (see Losoncz, 2019). Amongst some married couples, disagreements or conflicts arising from changes in gender roles remain unresolved and sometimes result in disruption and separation (Renzaho et al., 2011).

While the reconfigurations of gender responsibilities are often necessary for integration in a new environment, the literature indicates that internalising and adopting these changes can be a contested process, especially for those who are equipped with differing practices and norms related to gender and cultural values.

Research Contexts

Pre-displacement Lifestyle in Syria

As noted in the introduction, by 2019, a total of about 50 Syrian families—all Muslim—have been received in Oxfordshire via SVPRS. Most of the Syrian families who resettled to Oxfordshire come from the Syrian countryside—such as villages on the outskirts of small towns like Deir Ez-Zour, Hama, and al-Hasakeh. Others come from the suburbs of larger cities like Damascus, Homs, and Aleppo—areas considered ‘traditional’ in their practice of social customs.

In Syria, the centre of social and political relations generally revolves around the family unit. Moghadam (2003) has described Syria as a ‘neo-patriarchal state’ in which the interests of the state and the interests of families are tightly bound. Although family law is moving in the direction of emphasising individual rights, family itself remains the primary model for social and political relations (Sparre, 2008). Ideally, the well-being of individuals is ensured by the collective well-being of the family unit (Nasser-Eddin, 2017). As a result, highly gendered ideas about family intersect with public policies around education, employment, and family planning (Sparre, 2008).

Across Syrian society as a whole, men are usually expected to be the sole providers for their families (Suerbaum, 2018). In turn, especially within more traditional Syrian communities, the norm is that women stay home and raise children (Culcasi, 2019; Moghadam, 2003). Anthropologist Annika Rabo characterises these gender expectations from her fieldwork in Aleppo:

The ideal for most Aleppians—male and female—is that women should not be employed, nor have their own enterprise, nor in other ways work for money. According to this view, a woman has the right to be supported by her husband. It is his obligation to earn money to feed the family, and also to shop for food, and it is the obligation of the wife to make the house into a home (2005: 21).

This is not to say that women do not work in Syria. Some do, especially in communities where financial resources are limited. However, there are formal and informal sets of religious and cultural ideals that structure norms around gender. For example, according to Gallagher (2012), Syrian women in Damascus described their sense of collective responsibility towards their families as a constraint on their choices to engage in employment or education. In other words, if pursuing formal employment or education came at the cost of marriage and family responsibilities, women were more likely to pause their pursuits in order to fulfil their gendered roles as mothers and wives. These highly gendered ideas about family are particularly prevalent in the non-urban parts of Syria (see Boswall & Al Akash, 2017; Barakat, 1993).

Nevertheless, the Syrian civil war has caused a breaking up of some structures and patterns in relation to gender dynamics due to the collapse of state structures, experiences of forced displacement, and the subsequent dismantling of families and communities (Abu-Assab, 2017). Under such circumstances, some gender relations and gender norms were affected and have changed to a degree, while others have been retained or even reinforced.

Post-resettlement Context in the UK

The main aim of SVPRS is to offer ‘a safe and legal route to the UK for the most vulnerable refugees, and purposefully target those in greatest need of assistance’ (UNHCR, 2018). The UK government refers to UNHCR’s identification and selection procedures for families that meet the specified vulnerability criteria for SVPRS.

The UK Home Office covers most costs for SVPRS families for the first year in order to ease pressure on local authorities (McGuinness, 2017). From year two to five, the allocated funding is tapered as the Home Office assumes that refugees will have achieved an increasing degree of self-sufficiency and financial independence (Bolt, 2018). A study by UNHCR (2017) highlights that while representatives of local governments understood the scope of SVPRS and recognised refugees’ initial needs, including building basic English skills, these representatives agreed that it was important to ensure a swift shift towards participating in the labour market and gaining employment by the end of the first year (also see Jamroz & Tyler, 2016).

Almost all SVPRS families who came to Oxfordshire are ‘nuclear families’ typically consisting of parents and a few school-aged children. As part of the SVPRS programme, the local governments in Oxfordshire secure accommodation for the refugee families and commission support services. Once the resettled families arrive, contracted NGOs assist the newly resettled Syrians for the first few years. These aid agencies provide guidance on daily life in Oxfordshire and help facilitate their adjustments to a new environment. In addition, they are responsible for helping newly arrived refugees meet their basic needs, facilitating access to medical and educational services, enrolling in English lessons, and searching for employment.Footnote 3 The ultimate objective of these agencies is to enable Syrian families to be integrated into Oxfordshire, which is often discussed in terms of achieving self-reliance; in other words, to ensure that they do not have to rely on commissioned support providers but can either manage independently or have the knowledge to be able to access the support they need, such as welfare rights advice.

At the time of our research, most SVPRS families in Oxfordshire have already spent a few years in the UK. The following sections highlight their experiences of the reconfiguration of gender roles in the process of becoming integrated into a new living environment. Before discussing our findings, however, we briefly layout our research process.

Methodology

The data collection for this article was conducted by two researchers from different backgrounds. One researcher is a male non-Arab immigrant to the UK, while the other researcher is an American female of Syrian origin who shares a similar cultural and religious background with the respondents and is a native Arabic speaker.

Our aim was to capture current concerns of resettled Syrian refugee families upon arrival in the UK, through which issues related to gender emerged frequently amongst them. Our central research method utilised one-to-one semi-structured interviews conducted in the homes of the interviewees or in a meeting room at the local refugee-assisting NGO. To understand the changes experienced by these families since their resettlement in the UK, we undertook interviews with the same respondents over a 2-year period. From 2018 to early 2020, we conducted around 60 interviews with a total of 30 Syrian refugee families, most of whom we interviewed twice. In parallel, we also incorporated two focus group discussions with female-only participants to give them space to speak openly and separately from their husbands. At the same time, throughout the research period, we had numerous informal conversations with couples in order to record their frank opinions and to triangulate the findings.

In addition, we gathered perspectives from local governments and community-based groups assisting and working with these Syrian refugees to help understand their observations and reflections in relation to gender issues experienced by refugee families. Therefore, separately, we conducted some 20 interviews with staff members from local governments, community-based groups, and refugee-assisting NGOs.

Most initial interviews with Syrian families took place in the offices of two refugee-assisting NGOs. Follow-up interviews usually occurred in the homes of the families. Interviews with staff members of local government and community institutions took place in their offices. Focus group discussions with refugees were held at a local community centre and a café to encourage open conversation because of the relaxed and casual setting. Almost all interviews with refugee families were conducted in Arabic, their mother tongue. To protect the privacy of interviewees, all names are anonymised in this article.

Following data collection, all interviews were transcribed from Arabic to English by the second researcher who is a native Arabic speaker. She was also present in all interviews with refugee families and acted as a translator. Next, each interview transcription was reviewed and explored by both researchers to identify repeated ideas or topics broadly related to gender dynamics and shifting cultural attitudes within refugee families. Then, based on the initial identification of ideas and topics, the researchers developed a set of codes and categorised the relevant interview data. Finally, the researchers analysed and linked the different codes together into cohesive, overarching themes related to gender roles and shifting dynamics between husbands and wives.

One important limitation regarding our research is the generalizability of our findings. Due to time and budgetary constraints, we focused on SVPRS families resettled in Oxfordshire. Even though we spoke with the majority of these families in Oxfordshire, our samples are of course limited to this single site, and therefore, we do not claim the representativeness of our findings for the entirety of the SVPRS in the UK.

Findings

New Gender Roles due to Changing Lifestyle

All interviewed refugee families explained that they experienced major changes in their day-to-day lifestyles since arriving in Oxfordshire. In particular, almost all female respondents mentioned the increased amount of time they were spending outside of their home compared to their pre-displacement lifestyle in Syria. One of the female refugees explained: ‘In Syria, I didn’t go out frequently. A woman is not supposed to be outside alone without her father, brother or husband’.

Due to the new demands of life in Oxfordshire, however, Syrian women must put aside their previous practice and leave the home, often without their husbands, to deal with various errands, including taking their children to school and attending English language lessons. With women spending more time outside the household, internal household roles and traditional duties between Syrian husbands and wives are rearranged. For example, a Syrian mother of four from a rural village on the outskirts of Damascus described:

[In Syria] my husband spent most of his time out of the home either working or buying things for us…He didn’t even know how to make coffee for himself back in Syria. Now, he makes us breakfast in the morning and makes the coffee himself to serve when friends come over.

Another major change in gender responsibilities experienced by most of the refugees is budget management for the family. In Syrian society, husbands typically control the household budget given their role as primary breadwinners. Upon arrival in the UK, however, husbands and wives receive benefits individually through separate bank accounts. For many SVPRS women, this is the first time they open a bank account and thus have direct access to the family budget. Numerous women reported that they liked having direct access to the household budget because it allows them to be more involved in the family’s financial planning and spending.

Searching for work was identified as one of the most significant shifts that affected traditional gender responsibilities amongst Syrian refugees. As indicated above, most of the Syrian families who have resettled in Oxfordshire come from rural or suburb areas in Syria, and in their communities, the norm is usually for women to stay home and raise children (see Culcasi, 2019). However, after arriving in Oxfordshire, Syrian families including female members are strongly encouraged to find employment and to pursue self-reliance. As explained in the previous section, local authorities participating in the UK’s SVPRS have consensus that resettled families should secure employment by the end of their first year in the country (UNHCR, 2017). Similarly, during an interview with the government officials in charge of SVPRS in Oxfordshire, one staff member highlighted the importance of reaching self-reliant status for resettled Syrian families: ‘We certainly want all of these families to be integrated and self-reliant so that they don’t have to rely on external benefits’.

Also, in terms of living expenses, these families are required to have more than one income source to cover living costs in Oxfordshire, which is one of the most expensive areas—especially central Oxford—in the UK. Social workers and government officials in Oxfordshire whom we interviewed emphasised that women would likely have to work to cover all necessary household expenses. One of the government officials said:

In Arab culture, women take on a lot of responsibility for the household and children. But in terms of household economies, [adhering to] these cultural values can be detrimental. In Oxford, a family needs 1.5 income earners at least. One is not enough.

Once resettled in Oxfordshire, these refugee families were surprised by the high living cost and quickly realised that women need to join the labour force. One Syrian female highlighted: ‘In Syria, we were able to purchase our own house and raise four children on one salary [my husband’s]. Syria was cheap. But here [in Oxford] we can’t live on one salary’.

Economic conditions in the UK make it necessary for female members of refugee families to undertake a range of tasks unfamiliar to them in pursuit of integration and self-reliance in the UK context.

Women Gaining Power, Men Losing Authority?

These changes in gender roles and duties are affecting the ways wives and husbands see and engage with one another. In focus group discussions, some female refugee participants shared that their husbands were ‘changing the way they look’ at their wives as follows:

They are looking at us with more respect now because they see us handling various appointments and errands outside the home unlike in Syria where we hardly did anything outside…

I can feel my husband respects me more now especially because he asks me for advice on finances and other matters, something he never used to do in Syria.

Although most women on the SVPRS never worked outside their household, they expressed their willingness to work in Oxfordshire as they feel inspired by the working women they encounter in the UK. They mentioned their initial surprise to see women driving buses and cars, working in grocery stores, and serving as teachers and professors while also being mothers. Many female respondents reported that they now want to work like these women they have befriended through English lessons and other social activities. One Syrian mother of two toddlers articulated this desire clearly:

After seeing several British women who are professors as well as mothers, I started asking myself, why not me too? My husband is also encouraging me to develop my skills and go to school here.

However, not all families readily accept and adapt to the changes in gender norms and roles. For instance, the rearrangement of decision-making power related to household budgets generates disagreements amongst some couples. When asked why such disagreements were occurring, many explained that their husbands felt that they were losing control of their domain. One Syrian woman remarked:

My husband is uncomfortable with me having my own bank card and a separate account because he has always been the one in charge of providing and distributing the household budget. Dealing with money like this is a new practice for both of us.

As noted above, while both male and female members of resettled families are strongly encouraged to join the labour market, some male refugees expressed discomfort about their wives working. We interviewed a Syrian refugee couple in their early thirties who came to Oxfordshire in 2018 with two school-aged children. While they are both generally happy with their new life, the husband was explicit about his reservations concerning his wife searching for jobs and entering the labour force in the UK:

Interviewer: Is there anything that surprised you since coming to Oxford?

Husband: We were surprised to see many women working in the UK. In our town in Syria, usually female members do not work outside. They are usually responsible for housekeeping while the husband is the breadwinner.

Interviewer: Do you want your wife to work as well?

Husband: No. I am against it. If she needs to work outside, who is going to educate, raise and take care of our children?

In some cases, the fact that husbands are not able to continue playing the role of breadwinner for the family seems to be creating discomfort or frustration for husbands. While most male interviewees did not explicitly admit to feeling that they lost ‘authority’ on arrival in Oxford due to lack of employment, some volunteer staff members of refugee-supporting groups observed that male adult refugees appeared to be particularly frustrated by their current situation. An English teacher for one Syrian refugee family commented:

I understand that some male refugees feel loss of command over their lives. I feel like [Syrian] men suffer more [from the loss of control than women]. They feel like they’ve lost their superior position in their family and power [as a breadwinner since they are no longer earning income].

Our interviews with Syrian male refugees point not only to feeling a loss of authority within their families but also to a sense of failing to meet their responsibilities as providers for their household, which is a traditional expectation in Arab culture and society. A 27-year-old Syrian male refugee who came to Oxfordshire from Aleppo in 2018 explained men’s sentiments regarding rapid changes in gender roles and responsibilities:

In the UK, women need to work. Men alone cannot earn the necessary income here. Now many Syrian families are realising this fact. But I know some men are still uncomfortable with their wives working outside. They [these men] stick to the belief that men should take on all breadwinning roles and that men should be the protector of the family. They still want to provide everything for their family members without relying on their wife. If they rely on others, men appear to be not responsible for their family. This is a strong cultural and religious norm in Syria.

Aid workers involved in supporting integration of Syrian refugees in Oxfordshire are aware that the reconfiguration of previous gender roles often poses challenges to these families who are in the process of integrating into the new environment. One of them stated:

After these families arrive in the UK, they experience many new things. Housing tenancy agreement should be signed by both husband and wife. A bank account is given for both husbands and wives, so women have direct access to money. Women also learn about their rights and entitlements. Women become more active and vocal compared to their time in Syria. All of these can change gender dynamics inside the family.

In fact, several families mentioned how learning about these new rights and entitlements upon arrival fuels disagreements between husbands and wives. One Syrian man said: ‘After moving to the UK, Syrian women are becoming impatient with their husbands’. According to him, wives are becoming more vocal in their displeasure with their husbands’ actions or decisions compared to their pre-displacement time. This sentiment was echoed by other Syrian men we spoke with over the course of our research. They told us that their wives were ‘becoming too confrontational’ when disagreements emerged, which these Syrian husbands did not experience before resettlement in the UK. Wives’ voiced displeasure in turn adds to the loss of decision-making authority some men experience while husbands struggle to adjust to these new cultural dynamics within their families.

Separation from Extended Families

While these resettled families experienced the challenges of internalising these new gender roles, they also lamented having little access to people whom they can ask for advice on these issues. Even though service agencies assist these families with integration into Oxfordshire, the agencies are not tasked with addressing gender-related issues taking place in the ‘private spheres’ of the resettled families.

Meanwhile, many refugee interviewees explained that the absence of extended family members left them without ‘mediators’ to help deal with private household matters. As explained above, most refugee families who resettled through SVPRS came to Oxfordshire as a ‘nuclear family’ although they previously lived with immediate and extended family members in Syria and even in their country of asylum. According to the respondents, extended family members in Syria play a significant role in mitigating intra-household problems such as conflicts between wives and husbands. The above-mentioned Syrian couple in their early thirties explained the significance of extended family members as mediators of wife-husband issues:

Interviewer: In Syria, who do you normally consult if there are any issues between husbands and wives?

Husband: It is usually the wife’s mother. She is the one who deals with issues between married couples.

Interviewer: Who do you consult now?

Husband: There is no one to consult on such issues here [in the UK]…We always lived with extended families, even when we were in Lebanon [their asylum country]. We were living with not just our parents, but also our uncles, grandparents and siblings, all together. But they are no longer with us.

A 52-year-old Syrian lady who came to the UK in 2016 also emphasised the key role played by extended family in Syria: ‘Living with relatives is so important. It gives peace to a family. In our culture, elderly people serve as problem solvers and mediators. They advise other young family members on various issues’.

Upon arrival in the UK, these families were instructed during orientation that each household member has certain rights and that domestic abuse is illegal in the UK; they can call the police if family issues become tense or rough. Yet, calling the police for internal problems is not a common practice amongst Syrians, and many expressed discomfort with the idea. A Syrian refugee couple who came to the UK in 2018 explained:

We should not call police for our family issues. In Syria, if any problems arise between wife and husband, we first ask our parents on either side. Most issues are reconciled by them. If we cannot solve amongst family, we bring it to our local chief or religious leaders. Only when none of them can solve do we bring it to a court or the police. But bringing our private issues to public sphere is a big disgrace.

These reactions from Syrian refugee families in Oxfordshire are understandable given the importance of the family unit in Syria. Even after being resettled in the UK for a few years, these families still value their previous practices based on the collective family unit. Nasser-Eddin (2017) also highlights a similar situation amongst Syrian refugee women in the UK who learned that they could use legal protection in case of conflict with their husbands, but that not all of them were prepared to call on these state institutions to resolve their private issues.

Unresolved Disputes and Emerging Tensions

There seems to be considerable variation amongst refugee families about whether they have managed to solve these disputes arising from new gender norms and roles. While some families eventually internalised and adjusted to these changes, several others could not resolve disagreements with their spouses.

As noted above, while understanding the need for securing additional income sources to cover high living costs, some male refugees remain reluctant to have their wives working outside the home. One staff member of an NGO that assists with integration of SVPRS families in Oxfordshire shared her concern about unresolved disagreements related to this issue:

[In our area] we have ten SVPRS families. Two of these ten families are OK and flexible to have their wife working in UK. But the rest of eight are not. In some families, husbands do not even allow their wife to go out alone yet. Most of these families are from rural countryside of Syria where women don’t necessarily work. They [these husbands] are still adhering to traditional gender norms.

In some families, disagreements are turning into conflict. A trusted Syrian elder in her fifties from Aleppo said to us: ‘We are hearing a lot of stories about fights between Syrian men and their wives after arriving in Oxford. The women want to work to help with expenses, but the husbands won’t allow it for various reasons’.

Also, in some families, the issue of household budget management became intense. For instance, in one family, the husband was reluctant to give up leadership over financial decisions and, therefore, did not allow his wife to use her own bank account independently when tensions over money management became unbearable. For this couple, the wife accused her husband of being ‘obsessed with control’ of all family issues. According to this husband, ‘[Syrian] men are just not used to managing money in this way [having separate accounts for husband and wife]. We just want to make sure all expenses are taken care of’.

Aid workers and local government officials are aware of these emerging tensions and expressed concern. One staff member of an NGO assisting SVPRS families explained to us that if gender disputes are neglected, tensions may result in family separation or domestic violence in the worst-case scenario.

Implications

This section highlights some key academic and policy implications regarding the reconfiguration of gender roles within refugee families during the integration process.

First, the evidence highlights that integration creates challenges for resettled refugees’ pre-existing gender norms and roles. While some families manage to accommodate or accept these changes, others experienced dilemmas, discomfort, and tension between husbands and wives. Several studies of Syrian integration in other countries like Turkey, Lebanon, Sweden, and Germany reveal similar tensions between couples as men and women adapt to new roles (Olga, 2018; Cankurtaran, 2019; El-Masri et al., 2013). In terms of the UK context, Nasser-Eddin (2017) makes parallel observations in her study on Syrian refugee women who were resettled in the UK following the Syrian crisis. She highlights that life in the UK requires women to adopt new roles; while some women gain relative power through this process, not all male household members could readily adapt to these changes. These findings indicate that integration can be a contested process between ‘change’ and the ‘preservation’ of different practices and norms related to gender and cultural values between different family members.

Second, in the rapid adjustment into a new cultural setting in the UK, Syrian husbands experience challenges to their ‘identity’ as the head of household in traditional Arab culture. They are indeed aware of the need for their wives to join the labour market and to generate additional income in order to support their family members in an expensive city within Oxfordshire. At the same time, some male adults still adhere to their ‘responsibility’ as the breadwinner to fully ensure the needs of their family members. As the comment of a 27-year-old Syrian male refugee indicated, some men even feel ashamed because they are failing to meet their obligation as ‘protectors’ of the family, an important value they carry from Syria. In fact, similar challenges to Syrian masculinity have been documented in other studies (Habib, 2018). For example, Olga’s (2018) study of Syrian gender roles in Sweden found that men were struggling to accept that their wives must now share in these obligations in order to survive economically, which often led to tension between couples. Moreover, amongst our male refugee interviewees, a loss of economic means upon resettlement in Oxfordshire seemed to generate additional stress or discomfort for these husbands as all of them used to work in Syria and financially sustained their family over years if not decades. Thus, some reactions from husbands who are reluctant to have their wives work outside the home should not be simply reduced to a sign of their clinging to ‘men’s dominance’ or ‘patriarchal authority’, but also their reactions should be interpreted in a more nuanced way in relation to their pre-existing cultural norms. These findings, in turn, indicate the need for ‘gender-sensitive’ integration policy, and such an approach is also crucial for male members who are experiencing challenges to their identity.

Third, the families that came to the UK are required to deal with disputes arising between wives and husbands without traditional mitigation structures—namely elderly extended family members. As described above, in Syria, especially in suburb settings or in the rural countryside, the traditional family unit still plays an indispensable role in people’s day-to-day lives. Most of the Syrian refugee families who arrived in Oxfordshire previously lived with relatives, and these relatives—particularly wives’ mothers—functioned as ‘mediators’ for disputes within couples. Yet, because resettlement to the UK is usually done on a nuclear family basis, these internal mediators are no longer able to interject in private disputes between them. This means that upon resettlement to the UK, these families experience the loss of conventional problem-solving mechanisms embedded in their previous lifestyles.

Fourth, related to the previous point, resettled refugee families have limited access to institutional support for socio-cultural adjustments related to gender. Such issues are beyond the scope of refugee-assisting agencies although social workers who are working with the resettled families are attentive to these issues. Furthermore, Syrian families do not feel comfortable relying on police to find suitable solutions for gender-related disputes. These findings point to the need for the UK Home Office to consider ways in allocating resources to support the resolution of such private problems. As noted above, integration is a ‘two-way process’, during which both newcomers and receiving communities must adapt and cooperate. One pragmatic measure that host governments could take is to appoint ‘socio-cultural advisors’ who are familiar with these culturally specific disputes arising within households.

Finally, these findings call for attention on a renewed and holistic understanding of refugee ‘integration’. Although integration is a multi-dimensional experience, current policy debates tend to place primary focus on the functional and measurable dimensions of integration such as access to employment, social services, and language proficiency. While these aspects of integration are indeed important, equal attention should be given to what is happening inside the home—which often includes the reconfiguration of gender norms and practices.

In order to nurture a more holistic understanding of integration, we propose the following visual abstraction comprised of the ‘public’ (functional) and the ‘private’ (socio-cultural) spheres of integration, which recognises the actors involved in the integration process (see Fig. 1). As explained above, existing frameworks of integration predominantly use the household as the unit of analysis with little attention accorded to the internal cultural and religious adjustments between individuals within each family. For instance, in the notable model presented by Ager and Strang (2008), possessing cultural knowledge of a receiving country is considered to be a ‘facilitator’ that allows refugees to integrate into a new environment. In their framework, the cultural and religious elements of integration, including gender, are considered to be means for smoothing integration into a new receiving society, glossing over the tensions and contestations they can create within families. As the experiences of Syrian refugees in Oxfordshire demonstrate, the process of integration should be perceived, analysed, and supported vis-à-vis individuals’ private experiences, including how each family member encounters, confronts, and internalises or rejects socio-cultural adjustments while settling into a new setting.

Fig. 1
figure 1

Source: authors

Visual abstraction of refugee integration.

Full size image

Crucially, whether resettled refugee families reconcile the changes taking place in the private sphere of integration can have profound and direct impact on integration outcomes in the public sphere because the two mutually influence one another. For instance, the reconfiguration of gender roles can affect female refugees’ access to employment: if wives and husbands cannot reconcile the changes in pre-existing gender roles and adopt new responsibilities, wives may not readily join the labour force, which affects the pursuit of their economic self-reliance.

Conclusion—Towards ‘Refugee-Centred’ Integration?

Drawing upon research with Syrian refugee families who came to Oxfordshire, this article has explored changes in gender roles and norms within these families, particularly highlighting the difficult adjustments experienced by wives and husbands through their integration into a new life in the UK.

Although this study is based in a single site in the UK—Oxfordshire—and takes one nationality of refugees—Syrians—as research participants, we believe that the findings and implications of the research have wider importance and relevance. As noted, 16,000 refugees have already been received across the UK through the SVPRS programme. It is worth investigating whether similar types of issues or disputes related to gender reconfigurations are observed in other parts of the UK and whether there is any institutional support given to these challenges. Beyond the SVPRS programme, the same issues can be observed amongst other refugee groups who have come to the UK from countries with differing gender norms. Thus, as a way forward, it would be useful to collect more data from wider refugee groups living in different localities across the UK and to examine the internal process of integration within these families. Ideally, these future studies should include how refugee families are reconciling or adapting other forms of socio-cultural and religious values beyond gender in their process of integration.

Considering the results of this study, for policy makers working on the integration of refugee families, it may be necessary to design ‘refugee-centred’ integration support programmes. According to Korac (2009), a ‘refugee-centred approach’ should focus on how refugees organise their experiences, reconstruct their social world, and create meaning through differently situated everyday practices and actions. Crucially, as stated by Castles et al. (2002), in general, the integration of refugees differs from that of labour migrants because of their motives for migration and their different circumstances in the receiving society. Compared to migrants who chose to come to the UK, the SVPRS families were selected by UNHCR based on the vulnerability criteria and, therefore, these families never anticipated coming to Oxfordshire and did not have any relatives already settled in the country.

Given these circumstances, the transformation of traditional values and norms within these refugee families can be quite overwhelming. Upon arrival in the UK, these Syrian families need to make rapid adjustments in both the ‘public’ and ‘private’ spheres of their lives in the absence of preparation and extended relatives who can guide their socio-cultural adjustments. Support programmes for resettled refugee families should respond to these specific conditions and facilitate their integration process in the ‘private’ sphere in addition to the public domain. Partnering with Syrian NGOs and organisations across the UK would enhance such support programmes considering the socio-cultural knowledge and language services these organisations can offer to incoming Syrian refugee families. Such holistic assistance can eventually lead to the smooth integration of newly arrived refugee families.