Immigrant working mothers reconciling work and childcare : the experience of Latin American and Eastern European women in Milan

The aim of this paper is to provide an exploration of the work–family reconciliation processes of immigrant working mothers in Italy, through the analysis of fifty-six qualitative interviews carried out with Latin American and Eastern European female workers with at least one minor child living in Milan. The study highlights the strategies they followed to manage work and childcare under the unfavorable conditions posed by the intertwining effects of immigration, care, and employment regimes. These, leading to limited social and employment rights, also influence their kinds of participation in the labor market and constrain the geographical mobility of their family members, leading women to enact (over time but also simultaneously) pluri-local care strategies. While these can be interpreted as a further resource available to migrant families, they can also be seen as the outcome of a partial inclusion into the host society, showing new forms of inequality in the access of social care.