HOME, WORK AND COMMUNITY - SKILLED INTERNATIONAL MIGRATION AND EXPATRIATE WOMEN IN SINGAPORE

While skilled labour migration across international borders is a pheno menon of increasing significance in the age of globalization and an im portant component in the production of global cities, it has not been given sufficient attention in traditional migration analyses. Recent r esearch has focused on institutional mechanisms regulating the pattern s of skill transfer rather than the individual experience of being par t of the international labour circuit. Women, in particular, have usua lly been relegated to the role of ''trailing spouses'' and are general ly invisible in the migration process. Using a questionnaire survey an d in-depth interviews, this article attempts to reinstate the importan ce of women's roles by portraying them as active agents who adopt a ra nge of strategies in negotiating the move and coming to terms with the transformations wrought by the move in the domains of home, work and community. It argues that skilled labour migration is a strongly gende red process, producing different sets of experiences for the men and w omen involved in it. While international circulation often represents ''career moves'' for expatriate men, their spouses often experience a devalorization of their productive functions and a relegation to the d omestic sphere. As an adaptive strategy, expatriate women often turn t o the social and community sphere to reach for grounding in their live s. The article also points to the diversity of ''expatriate experience s'': while ''western'' expatriates tend to recreate a more exclusive w orld by drawing on strong institutional support, ''Asian'' expatriates find that they have to navigate much finer social and cultural divide s between themselves and the host society.