Transnational migrant entrepreneurs’ childcare practices: Chinese children in Hungarian homes

"Many young children of Chinese migrant families’ are temporarily sent to live with paid Hungarian foster parents. This care arrangement involving a wide range of forms in terms of time and space spent with Hungarian childminders has been born out of Chinese entrepreneurs’ need to dedicate themselves full time to their business activities, and out of the desire that their young family members learn Hungarian quickly. The small-scale qualitative research presented is based on fieldwork and interviews made with foster families and second generation young Chinese adults with childhood experiences of Hungarian foster parents. The study aims to explore the workings of the informal system of fostering arrangements with special attention paid to the socio-cultural profile of migrants and hosts involved; to the transnational family strategies of Chinese migrants; to the attitudes and work strategies of Hungarian carers; to the conditions and content of the agreement between them; and to the ongoing negotiations between Chinese parents and Hungarian childminders. The paper will discuss how multi-layered experiences Chinese children gained in the homes of their host families involve a strong emotional component for both parties; how intimacy creates tangible interethnic contact and shapes relations between migrants and hosts; and how these experiences influence second generation migrants’ identity and sense of belonging.