Abstract: 

A common narrative among migrant domestic workers in Singapore and Hong Kong is that their work abroad is to guarantee a better future for their families. Asian migrant women frequently extend their temporary contracts, sometimes over decades, as they seek to realize numerous life projects, such as remitting money for their children’s education, building a family house, or responding to medical or climate-related crises. Yet their contracts can only be extended until retirement age, after which they must return to their countries of origin. This paper focuses on migrant women approaching this critical juncture and how they confront their futures in a context of limited state support and uncertainties around kinship care. Financial education courses are increasingly popular among domestic workers preparing for the future. Such courses are led by an array of actors from NGOs, co-operatives, state agencies, private multinationals and motivational speakers, which aim to create new, individualized subjectivities among migrant women. I argue how financialization remains entangled with migrants’ interdependent relationships with the state and their kin, and sits in tension with less linear imaginaries around how to live a ‘good life’ in older-age.