Browsing by Subject "Caregiving"

The one-child policy of the People’s Republic of China created an entire generation of Chinese only-children, who have migrated abroad more often than any previous generation. However, despite the increased emigration, alongside the aging population, the Chinese elderly care system relies on the inputs of children. Therefore, there is a fundamental conflict between the filial intergenerational caregiving responsibilities and international migration processes, although some caregiving forms may be exchanged from a distance. This master’s thesis investigates how the Chinese first-generation only-child migrants who live in Finland experience caring for their parents in China. The research questions are: How do Chinese one-child transnational families practice transnational caregiving? What are the expectations and possibilities concerning caregiving? What are the elderly care arrangements like for the parents? The theoretical framework of this study consists of three dimensions of transnational caregiving: care circulation approach, transnational caregiving types, and the capacity, obligation, and negotiated commitment as factors that explain the practices of transnational caregiving. The research data consists of nine semi-structured interviews of Chinese migrants of the only-child generation. The analysis method is qualitative theory-guided content analysis. The results suggest that Chinese migrants and their parents practice transnational caregiving by exchanging emotional support. The migrants experience that their possibilities to provide care to their parents are limited. However, providing care is a cultural obligation. The future elderly care arrangements of the parents are unclear, which makes the situation stressful for the migrants. The situation is also frustrating as ideal options for arranging elderly care are lacking. If the migrants return to China to provide elderly care to their parents, they are forced to make sacrifices with their work and family. However, if they do not return to China, the alternative options of relying on institutional elderly care or hiring a maid or a nurse are not ideal either. Although the migrants value filial traditions, they desperately demand societal and policy changes that would allow them to plan the future elderly care of their parents. Based on the results, there is a demand for establishing more quality institutional elderly care services in China. There is also a need for the Finnish migration policy to allow family-based old-age migration, as some other countries do. Overall, in the current situation, the national policymaking in Finland and in China does not recognize the needs of transnational families and transnational caregivers.

Somalis are one of the largest migrant groups in Finland, with the highest rates of discrimination and racial harassment. Previous research has demonstrated that Somalis with Finnish citizenship do not self-identity as Finns, perceiving the legal citizenship and ethno-national identification as distinct spheres. This study aims to fill the gap on studies of identity and belonging by demonstrating how negotiations of identity can be acts of citizenship. Through centering the overlooked, gendered and racialized lived experience of Somali women, the research investigates how Somali mothers in Eastern Helsinki construct their and their children’s national and ethnic identities. The data analyzed is based on four focus group interviews and one individual interview of migrant Somali mothers. This study builds on feminist literature that has politicized the everyday mothering and caregiving of racialized and migrant women. Using the theoretical framework of Umut Erel (2016), I investigate three moments of citizenship: (1) knowledge production about the self and the world, (2) mother’s enacting citizenship in relation to their children, (3) becoming rights claiming subjects. My findings demonstrate that migrant, Somali mothers construct positive self-identities for themselves and their children as Somali-Muslims which is made possible by motherwork that resists negative racist and sexist depictions of racialized people. Contrary to previous research in Finland, I find that Somali mothers are central to constructing hybrid Somali-Finnish identities for the next generation, particularly in challenging ethno-nationalist and racialized criteria of belonging. Finally, exploring the complex relationship between home, belonging and rights demonstrates that despite feeling like they do not belong into the symbolic nation, mothers reproduce a home in Finland for their families and also work to transform themselves and their children into rights claiming subjects by making visible (racial) injustices and asserting their right to equality.