Beyond One‐Way Chains: Care Circulation Within the Transnational Families of Vietnamese Marriage Immigrant Women in Taiwan

ABSTRACT This article investigates care circulation within the transnational families of Vietnamese marriage immigrant women in Taiwan. Drawing on interviews with 30 immigrant women and 10 of their Vietnamese mothers, the study demonstrates how caregiving is negotiated across generations and borders under structural constraints. Women carry a double burden: performing intensive childcare and domestic work in Taiwan while providing financial and emotional support to Vietnamese families. Grandmothers travel to Taiwan to assist with childcare when visa policies permit, temporarily easing care burdens and enabling limited cultural transmission to grandchildren. However, care circulation is uneven and precarious. Care flows primarily through female networks while men remain peripheral, reproducing gendered divisions. Visa restrictions limit stays to short periods, creating dependency and recurring separations. This study advances care circulation theory by demonstrating that caregiving in marriage migration is multidirectional but fundamentally constrained by gender norms, state policies and unequal resources. Rather than a harmonious exchange, care circulation operates as a negotiated and inequitable practice that provides partial relief without challenging patriarchal care structures.