Care circulations between Singapore and Myanmar: balancing eldercare work abroad with care for ageing parents back home

Abstract

ABSTRACT While considerable attention has been given to the impact of migration on left-behind families, such research focuses on the children of migrants, rather than older members of the family who play crucial roles in maintaining familyhood in place and across borders. Through a multi-sited study of foreign domestic migration between Singapore and Myanmar for eldercare work, we draw attention to the care circulations connecting elderly employers in Singapore with the families of the foreign domestic workers (FDWs), in particular ageing parents in Myanmar. We interviewed 28 current and former FDWs, as well as 10 ageing parents (n = 38), of which there were 7 care dyads (i.e. domestic worker and parent/s). We underline the fraught relations of care and familyhood that are re/constructed by the domestic workers to give meaning to the eldercare work they do abroad, while also drawing out the ways in which left-behind parents both receive and provide care as a result of their daughters’ migration. Our paper extends conceptualisation of the ‘care slot’ by eliciting the multidirectional aspects of caregiving and care receiving in a transnational context, and with respect to ageing and intergenerational familyhood across borders and the life course.