“I Don’t Want to Underpay People”: Platforms for Childcare and Migrant Mothers Navigating Belonging

Feminist scholarship engages with in flux and situational motherhood, childcare, and the boundaries between private and public domains. Decades of knowledge production have signaled undervalued care work and feminized global care chains. Against this backdrop, more recently, digital platforms or social networks connect childcare workers to migrant (and non‐migrant) parents, with new or reconstituted implications for gender inequalities. While the limited research to date on childcare platformization has focused on experiences of domestic workers, there is a noticeable gap regarding parents’ perspectives on engaging this care, especially that of migrant mothers. This article inquires as to why migrant mothers turn to digital platforms in addressing childcare needs, if they are aware of applicable childcare regulation, and if (and how) platforms mediate understandings of regulation and worker or employer definitions. It frames the discussion in terms of belonging linked to normative values of care. To do so, the article first offers background on the Dutch childcare regime. Then, empirical analysis includes a desk review of online childcare platforms, alongside a survey among 30 participants and 9 semi‐structured follow‐up interviews with migrant mothers in the Netherlands. On the one hand, findings indicate little or unclear knowledge of domestic work regulation, further obfuscated by platforms as an intermediary. On the other hand, negotiations of belonging in fluctuating contexts, as well as perceptions of exclusion and high costs of care, serve as the rationale behind turning to childcare platforms.