Valuation of domestic work: Construction of stay-at-home motherhood among elite Chinese migrants in Singapore

Abstract

This study contributes to the literature on migration, motherhood, and work by exploring how migrant stay-at-home mothers view and interpret the values of the unpaid work that they are conducting. Using semi-structured in-depth interviews with 36 college-educated Chinese stay-at-home mothers in Singapore, we demonstrate migrant mothers' agency, efforts, and strategies in valuing domestic work and their stay-at-home mother status. Drawing on their migration status and relatively privileged educational backgrounds, elite migrant mothers re-imagine and construct values of stay-at-home motherhood by framing their role as productive workers and by linking private and public spheres. Findings demonstrate four distinctive yet related processes that shape how mothers value and validate their domestic work and current status: emphasizing the agentic nature of their work decision, framing their maternal practice as having high quality, identifying the merits of current stay-at-home motherhood experiences on their future career pathway, and constructing a shared value of domestic work with their spouses. In the end, this study highlights the importance of going beyond the separate-spheres ideology in understanding how skilled migrant mothers construct the productive meaning of their stay-at-home motherhood.