Feminist composite narratives of Chinese women: the interrelation of work, family and community in forced labour situations

Abstract

This contribution builds on the work Lewis has engaged in around women's decisionmaking processes on work and care. Gender has been an important consideration across her work and this has been explored in familial and organizational settings. The personal is undoubtedly political and a feminist lens privileges this. Previous research (including Lewis) has marked a shift from work-life balance to work personal life integration. This implies agency and perhaps a particular kind of woman able to make choices. In contrast, this paper focuses on Chinese migrant women working in vulnerable situations. Drawing on data gathered from a forced labour project, we present some composite narratives from women as daughters, mothers and wives. These highlight the role of the core economy in decisions about migration for work. Inevitably work decisions are bound up with and situated in wider care and familial networks. These insights around emotional and practical labour are feminist concerns. We present the complex decisions made by women around precarious work, present and distant 'families' and care. We suggest that future work-life research should heed Lewis' call for more nuanced understandings of the multi-layered context of people's experiences, workplace practices and relevant national policies, but go beyond this, to pay attention to the globalised forces underpinning ever greater inequity in work, in families and in communities.

Should I stay or should I go now? Exploring Polish women's returns “home”

“…In regard to the research participants, the unpredictability of their situation appears to be more often unintended. This could be explained by their socio‐economic position which is characterised by precarity with regards to work and citizenship which is in support of other studies (Lawthom & Kagan, ). No single reason behind the research participants' decisions to return to their homeland could be identified.…”

“…It is recognised that life‐course stage (Cieślik, ) and gender influence migration‐related decisions (Lawthom & Kagan, ). Research indicates that married women migrants have less decision‐making power than unmarried women, for instance Hoang ().…”

“…Migrants' life stage (Ryan et al ., ) and gender (Lawthom & Kagan, ) are vital here. The majority of Polish migrants in the UK are “at a stage of their lives where people form relationships and have children” (Trevena, , 13) which will inevitably affect their length of stay in the UK.…”

“…Often, women migrants follow their gender roles in the way they act in household decision‐making as was found by Hoang (). Gender roles are structures enabling and constraining individual agency (Lawthom & Kagan, ). Consequently, women's traditional gender ideology prevalent in a patriarchal society (e.g.…”

“…The next phase is associated with the communist reign and the mostly illegal emigration and return migration. The following phase relates to those who emigrated post 1990 and subsequently decided to return (Klagge et al, 2007). Fihel and G orny (2013) identified two separate waves of return migration from 1980s onwards.…”