The neoliberal era of migration has seen a change in the demographics of migrants. More women leave behind their “mother” country to seek work in wealthier countries, perhaps the United States or States in the European Union. The role of women migrants has changed significantly since the earlier periods of migration to the Western world which has deeply affected the relationship between mother and child.
In the early periods of immigration, women were expected to be the foundation of the family, i.e., the stone upon which order in the family was maintained, the family developed both morally and spiritual, and the wife and children remained subordinate to the husband and father. Women’s sphere and men’s sphere were distinct in that women were expected to work in the home. The woman’s place was to bear children and raise them according to their father’s demands. By the time of America’s quest for Independence from Great Britain, republican motherhood (an ideal espoused by Lydia Child and several colleagues) had developed as a virtue describing the ideal wife and mother as one who would raised virtuous families who would help maintain the new Republic. Education, even for girls, was a hallmark of this virtue as the United States grew in world stature.
As the West progressed into the industrial revolution, the cult of domesticity developed to maintain the ideal status for women — the homemaker/mother who was always subject to her husband, the breadwinner. Work outside the home was only appropriate for women in the lowest social classes, i.e., women who had no other means of support. Those who worked outside the home may have been midwives, nurses, seamstresses, or in some cases owned their own businesses. Women who stepped outside the prescribed gender roles were sometimes legally admonished for their inappropriate actions, but almost always publicly ostracized.
It wasn’t until World War II that women in the workplace was considered appropriate, and even following the war, women were expected to relinquish their positions for returning servicemen. Some women gladly gave up their jobs to go back home and become the foundation of domestic life — wife, mother, husband’s helpmate. Unfortunately, women were denigrated to a position of, not only subordination to the husband, but servant. Many in the male dominated world even considered women “stupid” and uneducable.
The feminist movement started after WWII, in the 1950s, as women were denigrated to their former domestic status of professional homemaker, but feminism did not have much impact on the domestic woman until the 1960s and 1970s. Since the Western feminist movement’s hearty beginning in the 1970s, women have made great strides in workplace acceptance and equality (though there is still room for improvement). In addition, since the 1970s the neoliberal migrant movement has seen an increase in the number of women immigrants. Women now make up approximately 51% of all migrants to the Western world. However, even though women make up just over 51% of the migrant population to the United States and many States in the European Union, women from the new immigrant population have a slightly lower rate of employment than native born women (56% to 59%). Nevertheless, the majority of migrant women who enter the labor market appear to be the lesser educated women (e.g., about 50% of female Indian immigrants with higher levels of education take jobs after arrival in the United States compared to about 60% El Salvadoran female immigrants over age 16 who begin working upon arrival in the United States). These new migrant workers are not unlike the poorer immigrant women of colonial and early industrial eras, who had no other means of support. And, of course, these women usually take jobs in the care giving and domestic sectors of wealthy Western economies (the care giving and domestic sectors, themselves, having been created by more women entering the work force).
In the new era of migration, according to UC Berkley sociology professor, Arlie Hochschild, a “global care chain” is formed in which migrant working mothers often have left their own children in their home countries so that they may seek employment in the caregiving sector of wealthier countries. The migrant worker’s children, left behind in the developing country, are cared for by even poorer family members/care givers.
The circular nature of a lost relationship between mothers and children is clear in this “global care chain.” From the 1770s to the 1970s, before being a working mother was in vogue, mothers and children developed and maintained the familial bond through their constant contact. In the modern era, not only does the migrant working mother leave her children behind in the home country, she stops caring for her own children so that she may care for the children of another working mother in a wealthier country. Her goal, of course, is to procure specific benefits (health care, education, etc.) offered by the paid workforce. The loss of familial relationship between mother and child becomes a vicious cycle, i.e., Hochschild's "global care chain," even though many women, especially migrant workers, seek some benefit for the children they place in the care of another person.
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