Privileged Daughters? Gendered Mobility among Highly Educated Chinese Female Migrants in the UK

Abstract

The one-child generation daughters born to middle-class Chinese parents enjoy the privilege of concentrated family resources and the opportunity for education overseas. We focus on the “privileged daughters” who have studied abroad and remained overseas as professionals. Using three cases of post-student female migrants who were of different ages and at different life stages, we situate their socioeconomic mobility in the context of intergenerational relationships and transnational social space. Drawing on further interview data from the same project we argue that, although the “privileged daughters” have achieved geographical mobility and upward social mobility, through education and a career in a Western country, their life choices remain heavily influenced by their parents in China. Such findings highlight the transnationally transferred gendered burden among the relatively “elite” cohort, thus revealing a more nuanced gendered interpretation of transnational socioeconomic mobility.

When the world is your oyster: international students in the UK and their aspirations for onward mobility after graduation

“…She explained that as she grew older, she felt a stronger sense of responsibility to take care of her mom and her younger brother. This concurs with work by Geddie (2013) on international students completing science and engineering postgraduate degrees in London, the UK and Toronto, Canada, which recognises the salience of gender in the careers and mobility decisions of female graduates (see also Sondhi and King 2017;Tu and Xie 2020).…”

“…Nonetheless, it is frequently argued that those dispositions are constrained by their past and present position in the social structure, which is reflective of one's social characteristics such as class, gender and race/ethnicity. The significance of these characteristics in mobility decisions both before and after study is well documented by prior research on international students (Kim 2011;Tu and Xie 2020;Xu 2020;Mosneaga and Winther 2013;Geddie 2013).…”

Left Behind? The Status of Women in Contemporary China

“…From Tu and Xie's (2020) article, it seems that even migration abroad, specifically to the UK in the case of their study, does not free women from the traditional values. Without siblings, daughters of middle-class parents are expected to perform as sons, advancing the status of the family through education and economic success, while also behaving as good daughters.…”

“…While mothers perhaps seemed more supportive of their daughters chosen career paths than fathers, they too held to the notion that it was a good marriage that made a Chinese woman "truly successful." From the three casestudies presented by Tu and Xie (2020), it seems that daughters can do little to resist their families' expectations, "pulled back" by parents "left behind" in China.…”

Portraying the ‘Chinese international students’: a review of English-language and Chinese-language literature on Chinese international students (2015–2020)

“…In all, little attention was given to the Chinese international students’ social characteristics other than their English language/academic ability, e.g. their socio-economic status (Zhai [翟] & Gao, 2018 ), gender (Martin, 2017 ; Meng [孟] & Abduweli, 2017 ; Tu & Xie, 2020 ), or family backgrounds (Wu & Tarc, 2019 ; Wu, 2020a , 2020b , 2020c ). Instead, these Chinese international students were treated as universal pedagogic subjects to be improved on.…”