Negotiating Family “Value”: Caregiving and Conflict Among Chinese-Born Senior Migrants and Their Families in the U.S.

Drawing on ethnographic research conducted since 2009 with Cantonese-speaking Chinese senior migrants in Boston’s downtown Chinatown and its satellite community in Quincy, MA, this paper contributes to a growing scholarly literature on the problem of senior support within the changing dynamics of contemporary Chinese family life by highlighting how the paid and unpaid caregiving work performed by Chinese-born senior migrants in the U.S. provides a means for them to act strategically to secure their own support in older age. The paper describes how these senior migrants work to negotiate their value within the family through caregiving while dealing with the familial conflicts that also arise in the process.