Original scientific paper
https://doi.org/10.11567/met.2025.11
The role of transnational and local migrant networks in women’s circular labour migration
Marija Šarić
orcid.org/0000-0002-5608-5758
; Department of Sociology, University of Zadar, Croatia
*
* Corresponding author.
Abstract
In the context of increasing labour market precarity and regional inequalities within the EU, circular migration has become a widespread livelihood strategy for women from Slavonija, a structurally marginalized region in eastern Croatia. While migrant networks are often seen primarily as resources for accessing employment, this article extends that understanding by examining how both transnational and local networks also sustain care circulation across borders. The aim of the article is to explore how these networks facilitate the start and continuation of circular labour migration, and how they act as informal infrastructures that enable bilocal living. 25 narrative interviews were conducted with migrant women who circulate for employment in care work, agriculture, and tourism and hospitality industry in Germany, Austria and Italy. The findings show that women’s circular migration from Slavonija is sustained through migrant and local networks that provide access to work, emotional support, and informal systems of care. These networks help manage the instability and intensity of precarious jobs and the strain of separation from family. At the same time, these networks reproduce unequal expectations, with women continuing to organize care from abroad while receiving limited support in return. They also imbue working abroad with emotional ambivalence connected with leaving home, as the responsibilities of caregiving persist across distance. Circular migration is thus not solely shaped by economic necessity and individual decision-making, but is socially and affectively sustained through gendered obligations, emotional interdependence, and uneven forms of care circulation embedded in bilocal living.
Keywords
circular migration; migrant network; care circulation; women’s migration; Croatia
Hrčak ID:
338755
URI
Publication date:
18.11.2025.
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