Negotiating Gendered Expectations: Structure, Agency, and the Identity of Eldest Daughters in Immigrant Families

Tharuna Kalaivanan

Advisor: Blake Silver, PhD, Department of Sociology and Anthropology

Committee Members: Michelle Dromgold-Sermen, Graziella, McCarron, James Witte

Buchanan Hall, #D201A
April 13, 2026, 12:00 PM to 01:30 PM

Abstract:

The viral phrase “eldest daughter syndrome” has emerged as a cultural shorthand for heightened responsibility, hyper-independence, and quiet burnout among firstborn daughters. But what if this phenomenon is not a syndrome at all, but a structurally produced social position? This project reframes “eldest daughter syndrome” by situating eldest daughters from immigrant families within the intersecting structures of immigration, gender, and birth order that shape their lives.

Second-generation immigrant women are frequently positioned as cultural brokers within their families, mediating language, institutions, and norms. At the same time, as they transition to adulthood in the contemporary United States, they are often expected to uphold culturally specific and gendered family obligations. Despite these important insights, little research has brought these strands of scholarship together to examine how eldest daughters in immigrant families understand and make meaning of their identities. To fill this gap, this research project asks: (1) How do eldest daughters from immigrant families construct and interpret their identities? (2) How do they negotiate and manage these identities within family, cultural, and institutional contexts? 

Drawing on 40 semi-structured interviews, and guided by Anthony Giddens’ structuration theory, this research conceptualizes gender not simply as an identity but as a social structure that shapes responsibility, expectations, and agency within immigrant households. I examine how eldest daughters are socialized into roles shaped by gender, birth order, and migration-related expectations, while also exercising agency to renegotiate those roles by engaging in boundary setting. Using intersectionality as a framework, I analyze how participants’ identities as eldest daughters both afforded certain privileges and imposed constraints on their autonomy across different social contexts.

The findings indicate that eldest daughters understand their identities as shaped through both visible forms of labor, which I conceptualize as “loud work,” and invisible forms of labor, which I refer to as “silent work,” within family life. Visible labor includes household chores, sibling caregiving, and cultural brokering, while invisible labor largely takes the form of emotional support and management. Although these expectations are shaped by gendered norms, birth order, and immigration-related contexts, participants actively reinterpret and reshape their roles through processes of negotiation and boundary-setting. Despite confronting challenges, eldest daughters relied on support systems such as friends, family, therapy, and community, demonstrating resilience and pride in their role while remaining motivated by their parents’ sacrifices to pursue their goals.

Building on prior literature that highlights the dual expectations placed on immigrant women to uphold gendered responsibilities in domestic labor and caregiving while simultaneously pursuing academic and professional aspirations, this study finds that eldest daughters must also navigate their role as cultural brokers. This additional responsibility further complicates how they make meaning of their identities within post-immigration contexts. By examining these dynamics, this study contributes to scholarship on immigrant families, gender, and the contemporary transition to adulthood, while also offering practical insights for institutions and systems seeking to better support eldest daughters as they define their own educational, professional, and personal trajectories.