Social Reproduction and Transnational Migration: Exploring Chinese Immigrant Women’s Experience of Childcare and Eldercare Work in Canada

Join us as we welcome Dr. Guida Man to discuss findings from her recent paper “Social Reproduction and Transnational Migration: Exploring Chinese Immigrant Women’s Experience of Childcare and Eldercare Work in Canada”

Abstract

This paper is based on preliminary data analysis from a SSHRC funded research project. Drawing on the conceptual framework of social reproduction in the context of transnational migration and global restructuring, and adopting a feminist methodology and an intersectional analysis, the paper explores the experience of middle-class Chinese immigrant women professionals from Mainland China to Canada. It elucidates how these women navigate the work of childcare and eldercare in the new country by deploying local and transnational strategies and practices to accommodate the contradictory demands of paid work and the work of social reproduction. It demonstrates that the work of social reproduction is shaped by social, economic, political and cultural structures as well as institutional policies and practices in the context of neoliberal restructuring; complicated by intersectional processes of gender, race/ethnicity, class, age, immigration status etc.; and mediated by individual woman’s agency.

SPEAKER BIO

DR. GUIDA C. MAN is an Associate Professor in the Sociology Department and a member of the Graduate Program at York University. As a faculty associate at York University’s Centre for Feminist Research (CFR) and the Centre for Asian Research (YCAR), her research intersects im/migration and transnationalisms, families, and gender and work in the context of global economic restructuring. Her research findings have been published extensively as journal articles and book chapters. Her edited volume with R. Cohen is entitled Engendering Transnational Voices: Studies in Family, Work and Identity (Waterloo: WLU Press, 2015). Currently, she is the PI of two SSHRC funded research projects, including a study on COVID-19: Exploring the Experience of Anti-Chinese/Asian Racism in the GTA; and a research on Transnational Migration and social Reproduction: Eldercare Work of Chinese Immigrant Women Professionals in Canada. She is also the CI of two SSHRC funded projects, one on elder abuse, and the other on immigrant resiliency.

DISCUSSANT BIO:

Dr. Amy Hanser is an Associate Professor in the Department of Sociology. Her work centers around topics on work, gender, and the cultural aspects of markets, with most of her research focused on contemporary China. Her current research project looks at the childbearing experiences of Chinese immigrants in Canada.

 

MODERATOR BIO:

Dr. Julia Harten is an Assistant Professor in the School of Community and Regional Planning and a Faculty Affiliate at SPPGA. In her work, she leverages innovative data strategies to study the housing strategies of marginalized people and the role of cities and housing for social mobility in China and North America. She is also a member of the Canadian Housing Evidence Collaborative and Shanghai Jiaotong University’s Center for Housing and Urban-Rural Development.

DATE AND TIME

This event will be held on April 20th, 2022 at 12pm PDT/3pm EDT via zoom. Register here!