Fumilayo Showers

Assistant Professor of Sociology and Africana Studies, University of Connecticut

Fumilayo Showers, PhD is an Assistant Professor in the Sociology Department and the Africana Studies Institute at the University of Connecticut. Her research focuses on the study of U.S. immigration, immigrant labor and entrepreneurship, the organization of long-term health care and the reproduction of race, class, and gender inequality.Her publications have appeared in journals such as, Ethnic and Racial Studies, International Affairs and the International Journal of Care and Caring. Her work has also been published as book chapters in edited volumes.

Dr Showers’ current book project, Immigrants Who Care: West Africans in the U.S. Long Term Care Industry, chronicles the lived experiences of African immigrants as direct care workers as well as labor brokers in health care provision in the U.S. Through an examination of immigration and health care funding policies in the United States; racialized demands in the health and domestic care industries; as well the social networks, businesses, and communities formed by African immigrants; she unearths the creation of an ethnic niche of employment in health care by African immigrants. Another line of research that examines migration aspirations among college students enrolled in medical and nursing schools in Ghana, West Africa, has been funded by the Carnegie Corporation of New York through its African Diaspora Fellowship Program.  

She completed her PhD and master’s degrees in Sociology at the Maxwell School of Citizenship and Public Affairs at Syracuse University, and a bachelor’s degree in International Relations from Agnes Scott College in Decatur, GA.