Social reproduction in onward migration: Colombian mothers and fathers from Spain to London

Abstract

This paper examines how social reproductive work—particularly childcare and material provision—is experienced by and distributed between fathers and mothers during onward migration. Onward migration is typically defined as the process whereby people leave their homeland, settle in a second country, and then migrate to a third country. Gendered in nature, social reproductive work refers to the activities involved in maintaining people daily and intergenerationally. Several studies explore how families' social reproductive arrangements are disrupted, reconfigured or maintained following migration. Less is known about the organisation of social reproductive labour in families who migrated multiple times. This paper draws from fieldwork with 32 Colombian mothers and 18 Colombian fathers who onward migrated from Spain to London after the 2008 crisis. Fathers typically onward migrated first to fulfil their breadwinning role, while mothers would stay in Spain to look after their children, following later. These arrangements were not necessarily maintained at the onward destination. To cope with downward mobility and precarity in London, some fathers became more involved in social reproductive work viewed as feminine (e.g., childcare), while mothers began outsourcing social reproductive tasks to better meet their families' needs and to seize the opportunities London offers. This paper suggests that onward migrant families renegotiate their social reproductive arrangements to address the socioeconomic challenges and opportunities its members encounter in the onward destination and proposes an understanding of social reproduction as relational and fluid across space and time.