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Article
Sustaining the household in a globalizing world: The gendered dynamics of business travel in Singapore households
Philippine Studies
  • Shirlena HUANG, National University of Singapore
  • Brenda S. A. YEOH, National University of Singapore
  • Paulin Tay STRAUGHAN, Singapore Management University
Publication Type
Journal Article
Version
publishedVersion
Publication Date
1-2007
Abstract

This article draws upon a large-scale survey as well as focus group discussions to examine how Singapore households grapple with the demands of participating in globalized work. It highlights the household as a site of analysis, where individuals engage with contemporary trends of globalisation in their daily lives. Specifically, this article examines the case of Singapore households where one or both spouses engage in business travel. The study (a) emphasises the need to focus on processes that bring about shorter-term transnational variations to a household's daily geographies and how household members negotiate these disruptions; and (b) demonstrates that the transnationalizing household rests on taken-for-granted gender ideologies to reproduce and sustain it, whether through women carrying the reproductive burden while their spouses travel, or through female transnational domestic workers who liberate their Singapore women employers to travel. The findings validate other studies that contend that globalisation has done little to destabilise patriarchal gender norms.

Keywords
  • Globalization,
  • migration,
  • Singapore,
  • business travel,
  • family
Publisher
Ateneo de Manila University
Creative Commons License
Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-No Derivative Works 4.0 International
Additional URL
https://www.jstor.org/stable/42633911
Citation Information
Shirlena HUANG, Brenda S. A. YEOH and Paulin Tay STRAUGHAN. "Sustaining the household in a globalizing world: The gendered dynamics of business travel in Singapore households" Philippine Studies Vol. 55 Iss. 2 (2007) p. 243 - 274 ISSN: 0031-7837
Available at: http://works.bepress.com/paulint-straughan/33/