Migrant parents in Italy: gendered narratives on work/family balance

ABSTRACT

Only recently has attention in gender studies on migration been paid to family/work reconciliation strategies. Currently, there are few studies that focus not only on the point of view of mothers, but also on broader intra-family gender dynamics, especially in countries of more recent immigration. This paper examines the work/family reconciliation ideals, plans and practices of immigrant couples from Morocco, Peru and Romania living in Italy during their transition to parenthood. We analysed in-depth interviews with migrant mothers and fathers with children under the age of 6, at different stages of the transition to parenthood. Contradictions between ideals of ‘the good father provider’ and ‘intensive motherhood’ and actual practices emerged, and gendered care narratives may be used to bridge the gap between ideals and practices. Although immigration fosters innovations and gender negotiations, the receiving context tends to hinder the emergence of less asymmetrical divisions of responsibilities for childcare and paid work.

KEYWORDS:

• Migrant families
• gender
• balancing paid work and childcare
• Italy

Acknowledgements

This article draws from a presentation we have discussed during the Third ISA Forum of Sociology convened in Vienna in July 2016. We want to thank Majella Kilkey, Laura Merla and Loretta Baldassar who coordinated the session ‘The Social Reproductive Worlds of Migrants’, and the colleagues who have participated in the session. We want to thank Eleonore Kofman, Umut Erel and Susan Lewis for their inspiring suggestions at the first stage of this work. We want also to thank Chiara Saraceno and Michael Eve for the precious insights they have provided. We are grateful to the Compagnia di San Paolo Foundation for the opportunities that it provided to develop our ideas.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes

1 Interviews conducted within the Research Project Practices and policies around parenthood. Work–family balance and childcare in multicultural contexts, P.I. Manuela Naldini, based on the comparative Transparent Project.

2 Since 8 respondents were interviewed twice, we collected 41 interviews in total. We use invented surnames, referring to the wave of interview, for couples involved in the longitudinal interviews and invented first names for the individual interviewees.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the Compagnia di San Paolo [Progetto Ateneo 2012].