Negotiating between Family and Career: Chinese Immigrant Mothers' Experience and the Role of Community Support in Toronto, Canada

Background and Purpose:

Marxist feminists suggested that women’s engagement in the domestic sphere widens the inequality between genders. Power of full-time mothers is diminished through unpaid family caretaking, and their full citizenship participation is covertly denied in the capitalist welfare society. Although childcare burden discourages mothers from participating in full-time jobs, embarking on career development, and engaging in community, the intersectionality of gender and early immigrant experiences is still missing in the literature. The aims of this study are to explore the lived experiences of Chinese mothers in Toronto, Canada regarding to childcare, transition and support system, as well as to understand how the Chinese cultural elements, such as traditional gender roles, could have an impact on their early immigrant experiences.

 Methods:

To understand the overall immigration experiences across different Chinese communities and generations in Toronto, Canada, we recruited 61 participants using snowball sampling through personal networks and community-based organizations in Toronto. The total sample includes immigrants from Mainland China (n = 22), Hong Kong (n = 12), and Taiwan (n = 16), as well as participants who are Canadian-born Chinese (n = 11). We gathered data through unstructured in-depth interviews to understand participants’ lived experience on different aspects such as employment, family life, community engagement, friendship circle, etc. The grounded theory approach was adopted for data analysis, and it was found that the experiences of seven immigrant mothers who had children at their early immigration stage presented the intersectionality of gender and early immigrant lived experiences.

Results:

Six of the mothers came from Mainland China and one was from Taiwan. Duration of stay in Canada since their first arrival ranged from 1 to 16 years, with a mean of 8.07 years. Majority of them had completed college or above and had a full-time job in their place of origin. However, most of them decided not to have a full-time job after arriving to Canada due to challenges such as childcare burden and employment difficulties, although they recognized that this decision may stagnate their career development and prevent them from fully integrating to the Canadian society. Our participants reported that they used to have abundant support to parenthood in their place of origin, but the immigration transition led to the loss of different sources of support. After weighing the costs and benefits, our participants decided to become full-time mothers. We also found that traditional male-breadwinning model, which is still dominant in contemporary Chinese society, has also contributed to the employment decision. 

Conclusions and implications:

Our findings provide better understanding on the childcare and employment situation of Chinese immigrant mothers and suggest the need for tailored educational efforts to prepare these mothers for employment and immigration transition. Some participants were aware of possible job opportunities in their early immigration stage, but balancing childcare and employment was challenging when family and community support was inadequate. The role of cultural elements in the transition experiences may suggest the development of culturally appropriate social services to connect various community resources with the target population.