Transnational migrant entrepreneurs’ childcare practices from the carers’ perspective: Chinese children in Hungarian homes

This ethnographic paper discusses childcare practices of Chinese entrepreneurs in Hungary from an anthropological perspective. These practices differ from mainstream form of childcare used by Hungarian parents in terms of the space, the frequency, and the duration of care. They generally take place in the carer’s home where children live; and the time span of this activity may extend as long as several years. These rather unique post-migratory childcare arrangements created by Chinese migrants in Hungary form an integral part of their transnational migration processes and demonstrate a reverse case of the ‘international division of reproductive labour whereby they buy childcare provided by Hungarians. The paper aims at contributing to the knowledge and understanding of growing up transnationally and ‘doing transnational family’ between China and Hungary. It has a special focus on mobile childhoods in transnational families and links specific childcare-related phenomena with the process of the integration of second generation migrants