Revisiting Global Care Chains: Power Inequalities in Filipino Transnational Families’ Caregiving Arrangements

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 staybehind 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.

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“…Remittances have long been identified as a source of financial support exchanged by transnational families (Solari, 2019). Additionally, migrant professional meet childcare needs using intergenerational transnational relationships (Baldassar & Brandhorst, 2021; Fresnoza‐Flot, 2023; Tu, 2023).…”