MUJERES PROFESIONALES NIGERIANAS, ECONOMÍA DEL HOGAR Y LA DECISIÓN DE EMIGRAR

This paper demonstrates the conditions under which some African professional women make decisions to immigrate based on gaining the ability to fulfil cultural expectations for them in financial maintenance of the household. Many women within African states, including the upper‐echelon of women from highly educated, wealthy, and influential families, find that cultural expectations for financial contributions to and financial management of their households are difficult to fulfil under changing economic systems in states like Nigeria. The burden to support a household according to local cultural expectations is untenable for many professional women who also find that the real practices of the state, financial institutions, and the job market afford them little ability to earn and to protect the very income and investments they need to fulfil their obligations to the household. Hence, many women opt to gain control of the means to meet their household obligations by shifting to a new statal environment ‐ in places like Great Britain, Canada, or the United States ‐ where women can find legal and structural guarantees of the right to financial privacy, control of their own earnings, and ability to use earnings to support children. This paper seeks to challenge policy makers to examine the role that cultural expectations for African women's roles in household reproduction have to do with creating push factors that send African professional women into the brain drain.