Harsh choices: Chinese migrant families’ childcare strategies in Spain

ABSTRACT

This study explores Chinese immigrant parents’ decision-making processes regarding childcare arrangements in Spain based on migration status and the availability of kinship networks. Drawing on 33 semi-structured interviews with Chinese parents who have preschool-aged children during the early stages of parenthood, this study reveals that Chinese immigrants’ childcare management is largely based on informal childcare provided by extended family members in both the host society and home country due to its high quality and flexibility, and because it transfers cultural values to the second generation. Moreover, migrant parents’ childcare needs are constantly negotiated within extended families due to the roles of grandparents’ care in other family members’ wellbeing. By exploring Chinese families’ collaborations, negotiations, and even conflicts in the childrearing decision-making process following families’ migration to a receiving country, our research contributes to a better understanding of the complexity of migration and the role of kinship networks in ethnic minority groups’ childcare choices.

KEYWORDS:

• Immigrant families
• childcare
• grandparents
• Chinese community
• Spain

Acknowledgments

The authors thank the editors and the anonymous reviewers for their valuable and constructive suggestions on an earlier version of this manuscript. We would also like to thank our informants who shared with us their parenthood experiences as well as migrant stories. Without them, this study would have been impossible.

Disclosure statement

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

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the Government of Castilla y León, Spain (grant number SA047G19) and by the Spanish Ministry of Science and Innovation (grant number PID2021-123875NB-I00). The first author acknowledges financial support from the Government of Castilla y León, the European Social Fund, and the China Scholarship Council (CSC).