The Gendered Ways Families Reduce International Migration and Mobility

Abstract

Prior scholars have examined how in gendered ways families encourage, support, and sponsor family members to migrate and how migrants had confronted and overcame opposition from family members before they migratedt abroad. Yet we know less about how and why families prevent many potential migrants from migrating abroad. I draw on semistructured interviews and observational data from 61 Chinese parents and children in a region of Fujian which has had a historically high percentage of emigrants from China. Although China's traditional patrilocal and patrilineal kinship system puts stronger sanctions on sons than daughters from moving away from their parents, recent changes in China lead parents to oppose children and especially daughters from going abroad. This opposition derives from parent's (1) concerns for the child's safety and cultural-linguistic survival, (2) socioeconomic constraints and intergenerational resource dependence, and (3) extrafamilial pressures to conform to social norms, all further bolstered by filial piety of children toward parents and the strong paternalistic influence parents exercise over theirchildren's marital, educational, and career choices. This parental opposition lessens as adult children age and their economic resource dependence declines. This contributes to research on how family dynamics, intergenerational pressures, and the demands of the life course reduce international mobility and migration.