Intergenerational Care in the Context of Migration: A Feminist Intersectional Life-Course Exploration of Racialized Young Adult Women’s Narratives of Care

Abstract

This article, reporting on a Canadian-based research project, tells the stories of three first- and second-generation, racialized, young women from immigrant families in order to illuminate their unique realities of intergenerational care and to better understand the role of gender, racialization, and migration in shaping their lived experiences of care. Using a feminist-informed adaption to the intersectional life-course approach, we explore the life-course challenges experienced by these women and their perspectives on agency, resilience, and resistance in light of personal, relational, and structural barriers faced by both themselves and their parents and grandparents for whom they provide care. Findings related to meanings attributed to care and family, developmental and relational disruptions and their impact, hybridized subjectivity, and responses to discrimination and social isolation are explored through the telling of women’s caring stories across time. The article concludes with recommendations for social work intervention and service provision in order to better recognize and support racialized young first- and second-generation adult women carers across sectors.