Global householding encompasses a variety of (re)configurations of family and household arrangements due to people on the move across national boundaries (Douglass Reference Douglass2006). My essay focuses on global householding associated with educational migration, and in particular, the flow of students and scholars from Asia to the United States.Footnote ¹

The practice of study-abroad programs for preuniversity students has drawn much attention for its transnational family arrangements, but educational migration occurs at all ages. At the higher end of educational migration are graduate students who sometimes move with their families; in this category, the household often includes a male graduate student and his wife and perhaps their children. The terminology used in governmental documents refers to these international students as “short-term resident nonimmigrants,” as it does to international professionals and scholars (for example, college professors or researchers), who are considered “temporary workers.” As F (student) and H (work) visa holders, these temporary residents are subject to strict regulations regarding their movement and occupation (though the latter can attempt to change their status to permanent resident). What marks the householding arrangements of these visa holders is that spouses of “nonimmigrants” are not allowed to hold paid jobs or enroll in school as students themselves without changing their visa status. While many women are now international students and scholars in their own right, the majority of nonimmigrant spouses are women, which signifies a persistent pattern of gender politics in global householding.

In 2009, the number of international students at U.S. colleges and universities reached an all-time high (Institute of International Education 2009).Footnote ² Several, and often interacting, reasons have been posited to explain why the United States draws so many international students. It is said that the merit-based higher-education system attracts students from China, India, and South Korea, countries that have more rigid and conservative education systems. Many observe that international students assume that U.S. degrees can make them more competitive job candidates when they return to their country of origin, while some hope that U.S. training will provide an opportunity to secure employment in the United States. It seems likely that many migrants assume that improving their English language skills will be advantageous in various ways.

In addition to reasons that shape individual decision making, there is a global political economy (GPE) that shapes national and institutional strategies. According to the Institute of International Education, international education is viewed as an important source of domestic economic development.Footnote ³ Thus, many campuses actively recruit international students, especially at this time of economic recession when domestic enrollments are less stable.Footnote ⁴ Patterns in the GPE also shape the educational programs that are promoted by institutions and desired by international students, so that higher education (especially training in information and communication technologies, biological and medical sciences, etc.) and the acquisition of English language skills are increasingly valued by those seeking the best jobs and future prospects. In these senses, higher education has become a hot commodity in national and international economic arrangements, and changes in private householding arrangements accompany this development.

In a technical sense, the legal status of educational migrants and their families is that of “temporary nonimmigrants,” so this group, which is not considered “settled immigrants,” has often been excluded from scholarly inquiry on migration. At the same time, their higher education and professional employment provide them with middle- and upper-class socioeconomic status, which tends to exclude them from research that focuses on labor migrants. Conceptual categories and stereotypes render this group—and its global householding patterns—relatively invisible in the literature. Yet nonimmigrant status can last as long as one's graduate work, which is typically several years, during which families can go through various stages of life. Depending on their circumstances, many settle for extensive periods in the United States, as exemplified in a major Taiwanese pattern characterized as “immigration through education” (Gu Reference Gu2009). In these senses, ‘temporary residence’ may constitute a significant period of cultural socialization and adaptation for international students and their families as they adjust to living in the United States. These individuals are under pressure to conform to the distinctive legal expectations and restrictive regulations designated by their visa status; insofar as these reproduce hetero-patriarchal householding norms, they operate to sustain the gendered social order that feminists must challenge.

Migration undertaken for adult higher education may or may not involve keeping the family intact. When it is a woman who desires to pursue higher education, the husband rarely moves with her; more often he maintains his (more lucrative) job “at home,” and the result is a split, transnational household.Footnote ⁵ When it is a man who studies, the wife is pressured to give up her career for the sake of the intact family, which effectively “forces” women to become economically dependent and perpetuates the feminization of unpaid reproductive labor. Some wives feel reluctant to uproot their lives for the husband's education, whether this involves leaving their careers or changing the course of their lives. But many women view the opportunity positively, perhaps thinking about the “American dream” as a preferred situation (Kim Reference Kim, Zimmerman, Litt and Bose2006).

When women become “trailing wives,” they understand that their main role is to provide reproductive labor—ranging from biological reproduction to maintaining the household on a daily basis. They may imagine that they can find new opportunities, such as securing more education for themselves or pursuing a path that enables them to continue their career in the United States. These options, however, are not available to most and can only be realized by a few who gain access to higher education or find employment, usually with considerable preparation. Most international students' wives come to the United States without being fully prepared, and often spend long periods struggling with language barriers, cultural differences, downward class mobility, and racial discrimination. These struggles and the issues they raise affect the ways that international students' wives carry out global householding activities.

Global householding entails a variety of challenges and opportunities for international students' wives. As they move to a new country, they have to learn many new methods of microhouseholding—banking, contacting utility companies, shopping for necessities, operating appliances, organizing activities and the like. If they are from the countries in which English is not an official language, the language barrier presents a significant challenge in daily practices of householding. Language ability becomes especially demanding when wives have to interact socially with local populations. For example, child rearing may involve arranging play-day activities and meeting and developing a rapport with teachers at day-care centers, kindergartens, and schools.

When international students move away from the family and kinship networks that typically provide close support, they enter local ethnic communities that often feature settled immigrants. International students' wives, in particular, may become providers of reproductive labor in such communities, for example, by becoming a language teacher at the local (ethnic) church. In this sense, the wives provide unpaid reproductive labor—and perpetuate its feminization—both within their own households and within their “new” (ethnic) communities (also see Kurien Reference Kurien and Hondagneu-Sotelo2003).

Because of institutionalized patterns and the legal constraints imposed by visa rules, conventional (hetero-patriarchal) arrangements are especially pronounced among international students' families. But their changed situation shifts certain householding features. For example, many wives of international students express a sense of freedom from familial obligations to in-laws. In a transnational setting, they are expected to maintain relationships with extended family via international calls and occasional visits, but physical distance relieves them of a sense of burden. International students' wives often become the sole, primary child-care provider; although this limits any chance of pursuing their own educational or career aspirations, some wives describe how they come to appreciate being able to devote themselves to motherhood. Some wives also report that their husbands become more cooperative about householding activities. As a side effect of their exposure to the U.S. culture of gender egalitarianism, as well as sympathy for wives who had to cut short their own careers, some husbands do contribute more to householding activities. This is a variation of what Gu (Reference Gu2009) refers to as “situational patriarchy,” where husbands shift their attitudes to reproductive labor, depending on the presence of the elderly and how this shapes householding responsibilities.

Global householding in the families of international students and scholars also illuminates how (governmental) state policies influence (private) gendered divisions of labor. This issue intersects with immigration politics and gender politics. Rules that prohibit spouses and children of international students from pursuing higher degrees or obtaining paid employment are (presumably) intended, first of all, to discourage “nonimmigrants” from readily settling in the United States. But the effect is to reinscribe and normalize conventional gendered divisions of household labor, that is, the male breadwinner and female homemaker model, which is stereotypically associated with middle- and upper-class households.

In their Asian countries of origin, most international student families are middle or upper class. Due to graduate students' limited income, they typically experience downward mobility in their move to the United States. Yet the time spent overseas is meant to cultivate human resources for a better future, and more often than not, these families are able to acquire a middle or upper sociocultural status. This does not mean, however, that they will be integrated into the mainstream society, owing to their immigrant status and the racial, ethnic, and cultural stratifications that prevail in the United States. This presents some curious results. On the one hand, (Asian) international students have a vulnerable legal status; on the other hand, their socioeconomic and cultural status is associated with being middle class. Here is a recipe for the contentious “model minority” image of Asian immigrants who are economically content and politically passive or rather distant.

A focal point for feminists is how these householding arrangements reflect, reproduce, and/or disturb gender hierarchy and its subjectivities. Wives of international students and professionals are associated with a particular “role,” though its manifestations vary. These women have a distinct identity within the international students community, and they may also form their own virtual community. For example, international students' wives from Korea have created a website through which they exchange information on diverse aspects of U.S. life: cooking, shopping, legal issues, child care, real estate, job-related issues, and the like. Currently, the website has grown and is accessible to anyone. But access to some pages is limited to those who are members, and to qualify as a member one must be a married woman. This online community shows how global householding is carried out in a virtual world, as well as in a transnational setting.

Even as their own lives and identities may be reshaped by moving transnationally, international students' wives who cross borders for their husband's education become key actors in global householding. As wives and mothers in a foreign country, they may identify new interests or develop new ways to fulfill old dreams. They may attempt to advance their own education while juggling primary householding responsibilities, or postpone their participation in paid work until their legal status permits it. Constraints derived from their visa status, however, severely curtail their “public” options: They are, for the most part, confined to unpaid reproductive labor. A feminist perspective on global householding should pay attention to the variously gendered implications of this legal provision. That spouses qualify for legal visa status reflects heterosexual privilege in the transnational context (though a very small number of states and countries acknowledge same-sex married immigrants), and in practice reproduces the legal institutionalization and normative expectation of hetero-patriarchal familial arrangements. Equally important, these policies reproduce—and in a significant sense, require—patriarchal capitalist households that continuously take for granted women's unpaid reproductive labor while prioritizing men's “productive” economic activities. In spite of the all-time high number of women holding, and continuing to pursue, higher degrees, this deep-seated patriarchal practice continues.

At the same time, we must acknowledge and integrate into our analyses the contrary effects of global householding associated with educational migrations. Distance from “traditional” householding and family obligations can feel and be liberating. Transnational moves offer many women new openings, opportunities, and advantages that may be experienced personally, socioculturally, and/or economically. Especially for women enjoying life in middle- and upper-class households, there are various benefits associated with not “having” to work for pay. These points suggest how the “patriarchal bargain” identified long ago (Kandiyoti Reference Kandiyoti1988) continues to operate in a global context and to complicate how feminists evaluate the pros and cons of global householding.