7. The Gender and Morality of Money in the Indian Transnational Family

Abstract

This chapter is focused on changing gender dynamics in inheritance and remittance practices and their effect on the morality of money in the family across five decades of migration from India to Australia. Inheritance and remittances are no longer wholly male. Drawing on two large-scale qualitative studies of nearly 200 Indians from over 100 families, who have migrated to Australia, the chapter shows that ‘the good daughter’, together with the ‘good son’, is changing the moral discourse around money in the patrilineal Indian family. At the same time, male control and ownership of household money is no longer accepted without question in some migrant Indian families.