Between Privilege and Paradox. Migration, Motherhood, and Stalled Careers
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Date
2026
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Citation
Balogh, Eszter ; Szvetelszky, Zsuzsanna ; Ábrahám, Jázmin Szonja ; Nagy, Judit T. Between Privilege and Paradox: Migration, Motherhood, and Stalled Careers. Socius: Sociological research for a dynamic world 12 vol.:1-19 Paper: 23780231261457977 (2026)
MTMT:
37384571
Abstract
This study examines the migration and labour market experiences of highly educated Hungarian mothers living in Vienna through qualitative research. We seek to understand how family migration and motherhood shape these women’s integration and labour market participation. Our findings indicate that mothers remain permanently outside the labour market, a situation stemming not primarily from structural barriers but from intertwined factors: the existential security provided by the husband’s income, traditional norms of motherhood, and the fear of social decline. Mothers’ integration does not appear as a linear process but rather follows a parallel pattern: Women connect with Austrian institutions primarily in an indirect manner by setting up a proxy integration while building strong ties within Hungarian communities, creating a self-segregating co-ethnic integration. The empirical contribution of this study demonstrated in the sample studied is to show that the labour market inactivity of highly educated migrant women is the result of complex social and psychological mechanisms. To capture this phenomenon, we introduce the concepts of “backstage integration” and “social surfing.”
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Keywords
integration, co-ethnic integration, migrant, mothers labour market integration