The transnational one-child generation: family relationships and overseas aspiration between China and the UK. Issue 5 (3rd September 2019)

• Record Type: Journal Article
• Authors: Tu, Mengwei
• Is Part Of: Children's geographies. Volume 17:Issue 5(2019)
• Page Start: 565
• Page End: 577
• Publication Date: 2019-09-03
• Subjects: One-child generation -- Chinese middle class -- transnational families -- capital accumulation -- international students; Geographical perception in children -- Periodicals; 305.23
• DOI: 10.1080/14733285.2017.1393499
• Languages: English
• ISSNs: 1473-3285

Abstract

ABSTRACT: Education-motivated migration from East Asia is regarded as a family capital accumulation project where middle class families reproduce their socioeconomic advantage at a transnational level. This study focuses on one-child generation migrants from mainland China who came to study in the UK as teenagers or young adults but remained to work as professionals after their education. Caught between the British social/employment system and the Chinese family system, the one-child migrants showed a fragmented sense of belonging and a high level of uncertainty in the migration plan. The pervasive Confucian family culture in these transnational families also calls for an expanded conceptualisation of the term 'children' and a long-term observation of their mobility curve in the project. This paper incorporates rational motivation with human complexity in the context of transnational reality, thus it contributes to a more nuanced understanding of changing intergenerational relationships in the transnational family capital accumulation project.