Singaporean Women Living in China: The Uneven Burdens of Middle-class Transnational Caregiving

ABSTRACT

Studies on care circulation have highlighted that the landscape of caregiving within transnational families is uneven and shaped by institutional contexts. The importance of marital status, however, remains underexplored. Drawing on interviews with middle-class, older single female migrants from Singapore who are living in China or commuting between Singapore and China, this article considers how older single female migrants’ care and ageing orientations are shaped by the gendered norms and heteronormativity underpinning migration and care regimes. We argue first that gendered norms and heteronormativity underlying migration regimes result in fewer strategies for older single female migrants to prolong migration; second, that such gendered norms and heteronormativity shape their long-distance caregiving practices, even as they live abroad; and third, that by aligning later-life aspirations with their eldercare obligations, they reinforce gendered and heteronormative expectations of caregiving. Through focusing on migration and care regimes, this article contributes to transnational scholarship on familyhood, care circulations, and ageing futures.

KEYWORDS:

• Singapore
• China
• ageing migrants
• single migrants
• gender
• heteronormativity
• transnational families
• care circulation

Acknowledgements

We would like to thank the anonymous reviewers for their generous and constructive feedback.

Disclosure Statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Additional information

Funding

This research project is supported by the Ministry of Education, Singapore, under its Academic Research Fund Tier 2 (Award No. MOET2017-T2-019).