Stuck in a Vicious Cycle? Career Aspirations and Entrapment Among Turkish Au Pairs in the United States

Burcu Akan Ellis ()
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Burcu Akan Ellis: San Francisco State University

Journal of International Migration and Integration, 2017, vol. 18, issue 3, No 10, 847-862

Abstract: Abstract While the service demands of au pair programs have come under much scrutiny, less visible are the ways in which au pair positions are utilized as a career transformation strategy for skilled young women. Building on in-depth and semi-structured interviews with a dozen college-educated Turkish au pairs who left their jobs in Turkey to take care of children abroad, this study shows how young women hope to utilize the educational component of the au pair year to realize their aspirations for career change. However, attempting to stretch the au pair system beyond its original purpose runs the risk of trapping mobile young women in a continuing cycle of service jobs that hinder their academic and career goals. The study shows that transient positions provide only a limited venue to create sufficient human capital and capability to realize such aspirations, instead leading to the effective entrapment of young women abroad in potentially precarious legal and financial positions.

Keywords: Aspirational migration; Career transformation; Entrapment; Au pairs; Turkey; Human capital; Gender; Skilled migration; Service jobs (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2017
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DOI: 10.1007/s12134-016-0505-x

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