Immigrant women and language maintenance in Australia and New Zealand 1

Until recently, relatively little explicit attention has been paid to gender differences in patterns of language maintenance and shift. This paper examines evidence from research based on census data, questionnaires and interviews, that, in general, among both first‐generation and second‐generation immigrant groups in New Zealand and Australia, women tend to maintain the ethnic language for longer than men do. Some of the reasons which have been suggested to account for this pattern are critically examined, and the role of women in language change, and especially women's role in relation to language maintenance and shift, is discussed. It is suggested that two interrelated factors contribute to the tendency for women to maintain the ethnic language longer than men: firstly, women's networks encourage more extensive use of the ethnic language in regular social interactions than men's do; and secondly, women tend to place a high value on the distinctive social and affective functions expressed by the ethnic language.