Gender and transnational household strategies: Singaporean migration to China

Increases in international flows of highly-skilled migrants have been chara cteristic of the economic globalization process. Professional and manageria l employees are in increasing demand as transnational companies expand thei r locations of operation. However, research on these skilled migrants' move ments has been predominantly linked to the firm itself, focusing on the pro ductive sphere alone. This has led to a failure to consider the fact that m igration decisions are usually made in the context of a household and that a separation of the productive from the reproductive elements fails to reco gnize the interdependence of the two sectors and how 'successful' migration depends on both the workplace and the home. This paper addresses this inte rdependence in the context of Singaporean migration to China using material from interviews with 130 Singaporeans.