Social reproduction and transnational migration: Navigating institutional processes in childcare by women in middle-class Mainland Chinese immigrant families in Canada.
Guida Man
Refereed Article, 2019
Man, G. (2019). Social reproduction and transnational migration: Navigating institutional processes in childcare by women in middle-class Mainland Chinese immigrant families in Canada. Canadian Ethnic Studies, 51(3), 117–136.
Based on empirical data from a pilot research project, this paper examines middle-class Mainland Chinese immigrant women's experiences of the social reproductive work of childcare in Canada, in the context of neoliberal restructuring and transnationalism. The research reveals that within a Mainland Chinese immigrant household, gender and class ideology and practices influence the work of social reproduction, as they do within households of the Canadian-born. At the same time, neoliberal restructuring of childcare services may place a heavier pressure on women in middle-class immigrant families who are racialized and underemployed. While some local strategies of resorting to familial labour may be held in common by Mainland Chinese and Canadian-born families, Chinese immigrant households utilize, in addition, a number of particular transnational strategies to accomplish the work of social reproduction, specifically the various schemes of sponsoring visiting grandparents to assist in the social reproductive tasks of the young Mainland Chinese immigrant family.