Gendered skilled migration: American women in China

ABSTRACT

Skilled migration has become increasingly gendered. Situating within the context of globalization and mobility, this article examines skilled women migrants from the U.S. to China. Based on in-depth interviews conducted in the Pearl River Delta Region of China, this article aims to address these questions: What are the factors that influence skilled women migrants’ agency in migration decision-making? How is agency reflected in skilled women’s post-migration experience, including labor market and social relationships in the Chinese context? This research revealed a paradoxical dynamic in skilled migration. First, even for skilled migrants, the capacity to exercise agency in migration decisions is not equal between men and women. Being highly skilled does not guarantee gender equality in distribution of domestic work and responsibilities. Secondly, despite their high levels of education and skills, women migrants had limited options in the labor market and may become more economically dependent on their husbands after moving to China. Thirdly, although the women migrants were not all employed in professional sectors, they all took initiatives to fulfill their talent through home-schooling, and volunteering for community building events. Through these activities, the American women managed to use their existing skills or develop new skills to cope with the post-migration realities; nevertheless, their agency is ultimately constrained by the larger structural forces, including the socially constructed definitions of skills, and conventional gender norms and practices.

KEYWORDS:

• Skilled migration
• women migrants
• gender
• agency
• paradox
• China

Acknowledgement

I thank Dr. Wei Li, Dr. Emir Estrada, and Dr. Takeyuki Tsuda from Arizona State University for their critical feedback to this manuscript. I appreciate the insightful and helpful comments from the anonymous reviewers. I thank AAG (American Association of Geographers)’s Asian Geography Specialty Group of for recommending this paper to win the 2020 Graduate Student Paper Competition. Finally, I am deeply thankful for all the participants in the research for sharing their migration stories with me.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).