Abstract
Since the 1980s, many Filipino labour migrants in the world have been women. In France, the Filipino migrant population is largely composed of migrant mothers who live in urban areas, work in the domestic service sector, and have an irregular migration status. This chapter revisits the ‘global care chains’ debate through examination of the caregiving arrangement between Filipino migrant mothers and the women in their extended families who take care of their children in the Philippines. Ethnographic analysis reveals that such arrangements provide economic advantages but also obligations and constraints. They have important consequences on the lives of migrant women, who find themselves tied in an interdependent but unequal relationship, characterised by solidarity and enforceable trust. This case study demonstrates how childcare arrangements associated with long-distance women’s migration reinforce gender norms in transnational families and widen the economic gap between women sharing the same national and family identities, along the care chain. However, both the Filipino migrant mother resident in France and the stay-behind woman relative caring for her children in the Philippines generally succeed in improving their economic welfare relative to the local non-transnational families of their home area.
Keywords
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution.
Buying options
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Learn about institutional subscriptionsReferences
Acedera, K. F., & Yeoh, B. S. (2021). When care is near and far: Care triangles and the mediated spaces of mobile phones among Filipino transnational families. Geoforum, 121, 181–191.
Aguilar, F. V. (2009). Maalwang buhay: Family, overseas migration, and cultures of relatedness in barangay Paraiso. Ateneo de Manila University Press.
Åkesson, L., Jørgen, C., & Drotbohm, H. (2012). Mobility, moralities and motherhood: Navigating the contingencies of cape Verdean lives. Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies, 38(2), 237–260.
Alicea, M. (1997). “A chambered nautilus”: The contradictory nature of Puerto Rican women's role in the social construction of a transnational community. Gender & Society, 11(5), 597–626.
Anggraeni, D. (2006). Dreamseekers: Indonesian women as domestic workers in Asia. Equinox Publishing.
Asis, M. M. B. (2006). Living with migration. Experiences of left-behind children in the Philippines. Asian Population Studies, 2(1), 45–67.
Baldassar, L., & Merla, L. (2014). Transnational families, migration and the circulation of care. In Understanding mobility and absence in family life. Routledge.
Boccagni, P. (2012). Practising motherhood at a distance: Retention and loss in Ecuadorian transnational families. Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies, 38(2), 261–277.
Brandhorst, R., Baldassar, L., & Wilding, R. (2020). Introduction to the special issue: “Transnational family care ‘on hold’? Intergenerational relationships and obligations in the context of immobility regimes”. Journal of Intergenerational Relationships, 18(3), 261–280.
Bryant, J. (2005). Children of international migrants in Indonesia, Thailand, and the Philippines: A review of evidence and policies. UNICEF Innocenti Research Centre.
Bryceson, D. F. (2019). Transnational families in global migration: Navigating economic development and life cycles across blurred and brittle borders. Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies, 45(16), 3042–3064.
Carling, J., Schmalzbauer, L., & Menjivar, C. (2012). Central themes in the study of transnational parenthood. Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies, 38(2), 191–217.
Cienfuegos Illanes, J. (2010). Migrant mothers and divided homes: Perceptions of immigrant Peruvian women about motherhood. Journal of Comparative Family Studies, 41(2), 205–224.
Commission on Filipinos Overseas. (2011). Number of registered Filipino emigrants by sex: 1981–2010. Accessed Sep 10, 2011, from http://www.cfo.gov.ph/images/stories/pdf/by_sex.pdf
Collins, P. H. (1994). Shifting the center: Race, class, and feminist theorising about motherhood. In E. Nakano Glenn, G. Chang, & L. R. Forcey (Eds.), Mothering ideology, experience, and agency (pp. 45–65). Routledge.
Connell, J., & Stilwell, B. (2006). Merchants of medical care: Recruiting agencies in the global health care chain. In C. Kuptsch (Ed.), Merchants of labour (pp. 239–253). International Labour Organization (International Institute for Labour Studies).
Dankyi, E., Mazzucato, V., & Manuh, T. (2017). Reciprocity in global social protection: Providing care for migrants’ children. Oxford Development Studies, 45(1), 80–95.
Dreby, J. (2007). Children and power in Mexican transnational families. Journal of Marriage and Family, 69(4), 1050–1064.
Dreby, J. (2010). Divided by borders. University of California Press.
Ducu, V. (2020). Displaying grandparenting within Romanian transnational families. Global Networks, 20(2), 380–395.
Falikov, C. J. (2005). Emotional transnationalism and family identities. Family Process, 44(4), 399–406.
Foamete-Ducu, V. (2011). Strategies of transnational motherhood: The case of Romanian women. PhD thesis. Babes-Bolyai University.
Fresnoza-Flot, A. (2009). Migration status and transnational mothering: The case of Filipino migrants in France. Global Networks, 9(2), 252–270.
Fresnoza-Flot, A. (2013). Mères migrantes sans frontières. La dimension invisible de l'immigration philippine en France [migrant mothers without borders. The invisible dimension of Filipino immigration to France]. L’Harmattan.
Fresnoza-Flot, A. (2014). Men’s caregiving practices in Filipino transnational families: A case study of left-behind fathers and sons. In L. Baldassar & L. Merla (Eds.), Transnational families, migration and the circulation of care. Understanding mobility and absence in family life (pp. 170–184). Routledge.
Fresnoza-Flot, A., & Nagasaka, I. (2021). Lingering caregiver-child relations across borders: Filipino migrant youths in Europe and their stay-behind carers in the Philippines. Zero-a-seis, 23(43), 889–914.
Gamburd, M. (2010). Sri Lankan migration to the Gulf: Female breadwinners–domestic workers. Middle East Institute. Accessed May 2, 2021, from http://www.mei.edu/content/sri-lankan-migration-gulf-female-breadwinners-domestic-workers
Hoang, L. A., & Yeoh, B. S. A. (2011). Breadwinning wives and “left-behind” husbands: Men and masculinities in the Vietnamese transnational family. Gender & Society, 25(6), 717–739.
Hochschild, A. R. (2000). Global care chains and emotional surplus value. In W. Hutton & A. Giddens (Eds.), On the edge. Living with global capitalism (pp. 130–146). Jonathan Cape.
Hochschild, A. R. (2002). Love and gold. In B. Ehrenreich & A. R. Hochschild (Eds.), Global woman: Nannies, maids and sex workers in the new economy (pp. 15–30). Granta Books.
Hondagneu-Sotelo, P., & Avila, E. (1997). “I'm here, but I'm there”: The meanings of Latina transnational motherhood. Gender & Society, 11(5), 548–571.
Hondagneu-Sotelo, P. (2007). Doméstica. Immigrant workers cleaning and caring in the shadows of affluence. University of California Press.
Isaksen, L., Uma, D., & Hochschild, A. R. (2008). Global care crisis. Mother and child’s-eye view. Sociologia, Problemas e Praticas, 56, 61–83.
Ito, R. (2016). Negotiating partial citizenship under neoliberalism: Regularization struggles among Filipino domestic workers in France (2008–2012). International Journal of Japanese Sociology, 25(1), 69–84.
Lahaie, C., Hayes, J. A., Piper, T. M., & Heymann, J. (2009). Work and family divided across borders: The impact of parental migration on Mexican children in transnational families. Community, Work & Family, 12(3), 299–312.
Lan, P.-C. (2003). “Maid or madam?” Filipina migrant workers and the continuity of domestic labor. Gender Society, 17(2), 187–208.
Lutz, H. (2002). At your service madam! The globalization of domestic service. Feminist Review, 70(1), 89–104.
Lutz, H. (Ed.). (2016). Migration and domestic work. A European perspective on a global theme. Routledge.
Madianou, M., & Miller, D. (2011). Mobile phone parenting: Reconfiguring relationships between Filipina migrant mothers and their left-behind children. New Media & Society, 13(3), 457–470.
Mazzucato, V., & Schans, D. (2011). Transnational families and the Well-being of children: Conceptual and methodological challenges. Journal of Marriage and Family, 73(4), 704–712.
Mazzucato, V., Cebotari, V., Veale, A., White, A., & Grassi, M. (2015). International parental migration and the psychological Well-being of children in Ghana, Nigeria, and Angola. Social Science & Medicine, 132, 215–224.
Moon, S. (2003). Immigration and mothering: Case studies from two generations of Korean immigrant women. Gender & Society, 1(6), 840–860.
Moran-Taylor, M. J. (2008). When mothers and fathers migrate north: Caretakers, children, and child rearing in Guatemala. Latin American Perspectives, 35(4), 79–95.
Mozère, L. (2005). Domestiques philippines entrepreneures d'elles-mêmes sur un marché mondial de la domesticité [Filipino migrant women domestic worker entrepreneurs themselves in the global market of domesticity]. Le Portique. Accessed May 4, 2021, from http://leportique.revues.org/711
Mozère, L. (2005b). Filipina women as domestic workers in Paris. A transnational labour market enabling the fulfilment of a life project? In E. Spaan, F. Hillmann, & T. V. Naerssen (Eds.), Asian migrants and European labour markets. Patterns and processes of immigrant labour market insertion in Europe (pp. 177–194). Routledge.
Nagasaka, I. (1998). Kinship networks and child fostering in labor migration from Ilocos, Philippines to Italy. Asian and Pacific Migration Journal, 7(1), 67–92.
Pantea, M.-C. (2012). Grandmothers as main caregivers in the context of parental migration. European Journal of Social Work, 15(1), 63–80.
Parreñas, R. S. (2005). Children of global migration: Transnational families and gendered woes. Stanford University Press.
Parreñas, R. S. (2000). Migrant Filipina domestic workers and the international division of reproductive labor. Gender & Society, 14(4), 560–581.
Parreñas, R. S. (2001). Servants of globalization. Women, migration and domestic work. Stanford University Press.
Piper, N. (2009). The complex interactions of the migration-development nexus: A social perspective. Population, Space and Place, 15(2), 93–111.
Plaza, D. (2000). Transnational grannies: The changing family responsibilities of elderly African Caribbean-born women resident in Britain. Social Indicators Research, 51, 75–105.
Poeze, M., Dankyi, E. K., & Mazzucato, V. (2016). Navigating transnational childcare relationships: Migrant parents and their children’s caregivers in the origin country. Global Networks, 17(1), 111–129.
Portes, A. (1998). Social capital: Its origins and applications in modern sociology. Annual Review of Sociology, 24, 1–24.
Portes, A., & Sensenbrenner, J. (1993). Embeddedness and immigration: Notes on the social determinants of economic action. American Journal of Sociology, 98(6), 1320–1350.
Raijman, R., Schammah-Gesser, S., & Kemp, A. (2003). International migration, domestic work, and care work: Undocumented Latina migrants in Israel. Gender & Society, 17(5), 727–749.
Reyes, M. M. (2008). Migration and Filipino children left-behind: A literature review. Miriam College–women and gender institute (WAGI) & United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF).
Save the Children. (2006). Left behind, left out: The impact on children and families of mothers migrating for work abroad. Save the Children.
Schmalzbauer, L. (2008). Family divided: The class formation of Honduran transnational families. Global Networks, 8(3), 329–346.
Shinozaki, K. (2012). In the absence of mothers: Fathers' on-site parenting in the global care chains and their dependent migration from the Philippines to Germany. Conference Transforming gender orders. Intersections of care, family and migration.
Tilly, C. (2007). Trust networks in transnational migration. Sociological Forum, 22(1), 3–24.
Toro-Morn, M. I. (1995). Gender, class, family, and migration: Puerto Rican women in Chicago. Gender & Society, 9(6), 712–726.
Yarris, K. E. (2017). Care across generations: Solidarity and sacrifice in transnational families. Stanford University Press.
Yeates, N. (2005). A global political economy of care. Social Policy and Society, 4(2), 227–234.
Zontini, E. (2004). Immigrant women in Barcelona: Coping with the consequences of transnational lives. Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies, 30(6), 1113–1144.
Acknowledgements
I am grateful to Maryse Tripier for her guidance and all-out support throughout the doctoral research from which this chapter originated. The earlier version of this paper was presented during the Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences (FASoS) colloquium at Maastricht University on 17 April 2013. I thank Valentina Mazzucato for her invitation to present my research findings at FASoS and for her insightful remarks. I also thank the editors of this volume, Javiera Cienfuegos-Illanes, Rosa Brandhorst, and Deborah Bryceson, for inviting me to be part of this publication adventure.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2023 The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Fresnoza-Flot, A. (2023). Revisiting Global Care Chains: Power Inequalities in Filipino Transnational Families’ Caregiving Arrangements. In: Cienfuegos, J., Brandhorst, R., Fahy Bryceson, D. (eds) Handbook of Transnational Families Around the World . Handbooks of Sociology and Social Research. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-15278-8_8
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-15278-8_8
Published:
Publisher Name: Springer, Cham
Print ISBN: 978-3-031-15277-1
Online ISBN: 978-3-031-15278-8
eBook Packages: Social SciencesSocial Sciences (R0)