Between Privilege and Paradox: Migration,Motherhood,and Stalled Careers

Existential motivator

The existential motivator is a key factor facilitating the emergence of backstage integration as across the interviews, it emerged as the most important and most frequently mentioned. The existential motivator refers to the husband’s high income, which guarantees the family’s financial security. The labour market position of this population is often determined by their husbands’ earnings (Ballarino and Panichella 2018) as even with childcare allowances, they are not financially autonomous. At the same time, in Hungarian culture, women’s inactivity is poorly accepted. The active labour market status of women in Hungary is an expectation independent of the financial status of the family and husband. The social milieu’s prevailing attitudes make this labour market inactivity challenging to accept as a woman with earning potential (Pongrácz and Molnár 2011). Contrary to the Austrian family policy and cultural pattern where the majority of mothers only go back to part-time positions after their child turns three (Ziegler and Bamieh 2025), most Hungarian women return to work full-time after three years (Blaskó 2008; OECD 2022). In a Hungarian context, withdrawal from paid work during the first three years of childcare is widely understood as a temporary and time-bounded phase. Consistent with this norm, most participants initially framed their labour market return as a time-bounded plan, often linked to the child reaching nursery or kindergarten age and/or to acquiring German language skills. In practise, however, these plans were repeatedly postponed. Thus, the inclusion of mothers with children ages one to three in our sample does not contradict Hungarian expectations of return after three years; rather, it makes visible how migration-related barriers, such as language acquisition, childcare access, and women’s backstage positioning, can extend an originally temporary withdrawal from paid work into a prolonged and sometimes indefinite absence from the labour market.

It would not have been the same in Hungary because you return to work after your child turns three. (One child, before migration, inactive with casual work, married, six years in migration)

In our study, we realized that contrary to Hungarian norms, the social and economic position of husbands in Vienna determines highly educated mothers’ career prospects and labour market activity.

I do not know. It could be a bit of a convenience, but I have a good thing going for me. When I look at the fact that I am not working, now both my children are in kindergarten, only half-day, but they go to kindergarten, we live well on one income. (Two children, before and after migration, inactive, married, four years in migration)

According to our data, the existential motivator is specific to families with a well-paid husband. As the data collection does not allow us to establish causal relationships, we can only conclude here that the husband’s favourable occupational and economic status is likely to be one of the most significant co-factors in the process of backstage integration, on the condition that inactivity can indeed be a beneficial situation. Husband’s secure labour market position raises the woman’s comparison level for alternatives, rendering workforce reentry less attractive. This preference for maintaining the current situation can be understood through the lens of Status Quo Bias (Samuelson and Zeckhauser 1988), which describes people’s tendency to favour their existing environment and resist change. At the same time, Hungarian cultural expectations of maternal employment maintain a high original comparison level, producing a potential dissonance that is resolved by adopting a backstage role. This arrangement minimizes perceived personal loss, preserves relational equilibrium within the family, and allows women to remain active in crucial integrator functions—such as ensuring children’s dual cultural education and representing family interests in Austrian institutions—without entering the formal labour market (Thibaut and Kelley 1959).

Cultural motivator

The cultural motivator is linked to the Hungarian traditional and conservative family model. Women’s acceptance of traditional values automatically activates the valorisation of the family dimension as a legitimate and evident area of compensation since the shift toward traditional values is not culturally inadvisable. Backstage integration is not an “automatic” consequence of the existential situation, but it can become permanent when the existential security of the household creates the condition that the woman has the option of staying out of the labour market, while cultural/gender norms provide the framework of meaning and legitimacy that makes this option a “correct” and acceptable choice. In other words, the cultural norm of motherhood alone is not enough to maintain backstage integration—if the family’s livelihood is not secure, women have to work—so the emergence of backstage integration requires the combined presence of cultural and existential dimensions, where the existential factor is more of a prerequisite than a cause. In their migration circumstances, motherhood provides a reasonable justification for staying away from the labour market since they are importing the domestic Hungarian culture of motherhood into their lives in Vienna.

I definitely wanted to stay at home with my son for three years to give the second child that attention and support as well. (Two children, before and after migration, inactive with sometimes casual work, partnership, more than 10 years in migration)

An important characteristic of husband-centred migration is that the wife sacrifices for her family by leaving behind her job, grandparental support, and home network, learning motherhood in a new and unfamiliar environment in a foreign country. They cannot rely on the safety or support of their familiar surroundings.

I tried to pack, cook, play, walk, care for my six-week-old, and look for a doctor in English or Hungarian on my own; that is difficult. (Two children, before and after migration, inactive, married, seven years in migration)

However, the experience of motherhood is different in the lives of women in their country of birth and the host country. For migrant mothers, emotions play a significant role throughout migration as their emotions determine the process of making sense of the new environment and shape their experiences of the new life (Herrero-Arias et al. 2021). These mothers compensate for their labour market losses through patriarchal family structures by overinvesting in their family’s integration efforts (Steele 1988). Mothers who retreated from the labour market cannot use their skills in that context and redirect them into their micro-environment. Therefore, their desire for self-actualization is not exploited in the labour market but in the family context. They invest a lot of energy into helping the children receive high-quality education and relentlessly represent the children’s interests in kindergarten and school (if not in German, then in English). Their life’s goal is for their children to achieve outstanding results and performance. Their success is nothing less than the success and prosperity of their children and husbands in Vienna. This work in Vienna fills women’s lives and is perceived as invisible labour—not limited to domestic tasks but also encompassing support for success-oriented integration, intensive communication with people from home, dual Hungarian-Austrian cultural education, and the many responsibilities that accompany it. Therefore, motherhood takes on a broader meaning for them in Vienna because it is fulfilled in an integrative role. Women draw on their specific skills, competencies, advocacy tools, and intellectual and decision-making capacities to support both their families and their own self-fulfilment through integrative labour. At this point, we should note that invisible work here is not limited to performing care tasks (contrary to care punishment theories) but is a work that uses intellectual abilities to a great extent and is embodied in the integration work aimed at their families.

We denounced the nursery because we saw that the teachers or the nursery teacher were very frustrated. They just had to push a curriculum that had nothing to do with the child. (Two children, before migration, inactive, married, five years in migration)

[Talking about filling institutional gaps] in these situations, mothers have to really be on top of it . . . we can create an alternative reality, a Hungarian reality for them. (Two children, after migration, inactive, married, seven years in migration)

On the one hand, he is very grateful and appreciative and really values that I make it possible for the children and the family to make things work. . . . Because we learned at home that I should not waste my time and energy on this [job seeking] and that it is much more important to spend time and energy on children. (Two children, before and after migration, inactive, married, seven years in migration)

Psychological motivator

The phenomenon of de-qualification, as observed in studies (Balogh et al. 2022), also emerged in this research; however, the issue is situated within a social psychological context. Women feel an intense fear of being relegated to occupying a much lower position in Vienna than their occupational position in Hungary. These women could already be in a managerial position or at the top of their careers, and their losses are thus amplified and intensely felt. The phenomenon is also an example of how the motherhood penalty is amplified in the context of migration.

It’s hard for me to go back into the job market because my self-confidence has been shattered. . . . Some people wonder why, with my degree in economics, I’m not doing some super job at “X” bank and why am I not doing something really good. (Two children, before and after migration, inactive, married, more than 10 years in migration)

However, for these women, we are witnessing the socio-psychological embedding of punishment. The psychological motivator for backstage integration is the fear of shame associated with de-qualification and the visibility of status loss (Lewis 1995), which acts as an internal brake on labour market integration. Shame in social relationships can manifest itself in the so-called exposed self (Lewis 1995) in the form of noncompliance with social expectations. Thus, women fear that by being de-qualified, they will fail to conform to the labour market and social norms appropriate to their former social status and will be judged by the people from home. Avoiding shame in these mothers’ lives is an intense psychological force that can preserve their inactive labour market status in their migration. Therefore, even though many desire to reenter the workforce, this does not equal to the willingness of accepting any job. This avoidance of shame means that they only want to accept jobs that are compatible with their previous status to preserve their identity. However, as mentioned, due to the existential motivator of the husband’s high income, the wait for the ideal position and the pursuit of language learning becomes a stable strategic choice for the women studied.

I have already thought: Why don’t I go and clean? Why don’t I go to an ALDI to stock a vegetable counter? Because I could do that. However, the shame is that my inner values stop me from doing it. (One child, after migration, married, inactive, more than 10 years in migration)

Additionally, those few women who do end up taking jobs beneath their qualifications due to circumstances in which the existential motivator of the husband’s high income is temporarily weakened or absent (e.g., divorce, husband going through temporary financial hardship) experience the shame of this de-qualification to the highest degree.

But it [having a cleaning job] really hurt my ego, because my partner was a professor at WUN. . . . And it didn’t do my ego any good that I earned more at home than he did in academics, so my career was more secure . . . and then I became such a housewife. (One child after migration, cohabitation, inactive, more than six years in migration)

She was still a little worried [speaking about her mother] back then, because I was a nurse’s aide: Oh my God, my little girl, you graduated from college, and now you’re carrying bedpans. (Two children before and after migration, married, active, more than 10 years in migration)

These cases highlight that backstage integration is not defined by labour market inactivity alone as both prolonged labour market inactivity and employment far below one’s qualifications are structured by the same backstage dynamics, in which the ongoing management of shame and status loss regulates women’s integration trajectories.

Similarly to other migrant groups (e.g., Pietka, Clark, and Canton 2013; Zschomler 2023), this population has a strong coexistence between de-qualification and language skills. Women perceive that low language skills limit access to occupational positions similar to those they held in Hungary.

And now I am supposed to work packing shelves in a Spar or a Billa without any knowledge of the language; let’s just say I have a degree and a good job back in Hungary? (Two children, before and after migration, inactive, married, four years in migration)

Even though women’s perceptions of their language skills vary, they tend to consider them low regardless of their language qualifications. Skilled mothers also position themselves at a much lower level than their real labour market opportunities are likely to exist (Festinger 1954). Their anxiety related to de-qualification is, therefore, a paralysis resulting from a negative self-perception. Women likely perceive that the language proficiency expected of them in a suitable job is linked to an elaborate language code (Bernstein 1971), which they cannot meet in German. They believe that their German language skills are only sufficient for physical work several levels below their level of education, so anxiety is caused by fear of being relegated to physical work.

They say I speak well, and they praise me, but I am not pleased with myself. . . . Let us put it that way: someone with a different personality could feel completely comfortable or more liberated. (One child, before migration, inactive, married, four years in migration)

Backstage role and integrator role

Women easily engage in voluntary inactivity in the Austrian labour market as the family is not financially dependent on their earnings; they attempt to avoid de-qualification at all costs, import traditional mother ideals from home, and have followed their husbands and families, all of which solidify their identity as de-emancipated mothers. Together, these factors provide an exemption from entering the labour market and, simultaneously, a permission to work within the family while supporting family integration. The backstage role means not only physical isolation but also a deep inner identity crisis and emotional realignment for the women who immigrated to Vienna. In this situation, the professional “self” is pushed into the background in order to ensure the smooth running of the family, and thus a de-emancipatory turn occurs, and these women in Vienna find themselves in a patriarchal family system.

For me, it was a loss of identity. I was career-oriented, I was successful, I was fast-paced, I was constantly organizing events, I was full of friends, and then I found myself in such a completely opposite situation within a few months. Without friends, without a job, without money. (Two children, before and after migration, inactive, married, eight years in migration)

Somehow, my own life completely took a back seat to what would happen to me, to what I would do in the future. My only goal was somehow to . . . cherish this little child. . . . But what about me? Where am I in all this? (One child before migration, inactive, married, eight years in migration)

There is no documented experience of similar de-emancipation dynamics among highly educated Hungarian women living in Hungary or abroad. De-emancipation here does not imply external coercion but an internally rationalized retreat, justified through motherhood and the ideal of maternal availability.

The research supplements other studies (Udayanga 2024) by showing that in this migration situation, women use their skills to support their families and not their careers by prioritizing the integration of their family members. This integrator role is an assumed, created behaviour and lifestyle. It results from unsuccessful integration into the labour market. It serves as a form of self-justification of a problematic life situation to oneself, one’s husband, and the home-country social network. The integrator’s role refers to the outside world; they do not take a job because they care for the family’s affairs in the new country and the new life situation. Therefore, women are not directly involved in Austrian communities because of their inactivity; however, there is still an expectation placed on them as the quality and intensity of their family’s contact with the communities depend primarily on them.

I pretty much push the cart on my own . . . I do the housework, the cleaning . . . I have to talk to the child and the [other] parents. (One child, before migration, partnership, inactive, four years in migration)

It’s a burden that the responsibility is mine alone. (Two children, after migration, inactive, married, seven years in migration)

The example of mothers confirms the research on tied migration, motherhood penalty, care penalty, and de-qualification and adds a new dimension to it: It shows how the backstage and integrator role can become a form of social status and autonomy reordering for formally emancipated European women. Refusing low-status jobs is possible not only to avoid status loss but also for identity protection, and silent withdrawal is also a legitimizing tool for mothers.

Backstage integration

Backstage integration refers to a form of segmented integration in which migrant women remain outside the labour market while simultaneously engaging in two parallel integration processes, which arises due to their inactivity in the labour market, their roles in family life, and the voluntary role they play as integrators through their ability to advocate for their interests. In the Austrian sphere, women are connected to the communities with an integrative role, helping their children and husbands to thrive. We define this integration as proxy integration, which is specifically linked to institutions, without cultural and emotional belonging but with functional and practical relationship to group members. In the Hungarian sphere, direct integration happens with strong emotional and cultural belonging and identification toward group members. We named this co-ethnic integration. The two integration processes coexist in parallel and operate according to very different dynamics. The main differences between the two lies in the sense of belonging and level of integration.

Due to women’s inactivity in the labour market, they choose to help their children and family succeed as a field for self-realization. They thus invest their excellent skills in integrative work.

Integrative work links specifically to Austrian institutions (children’s school, kindergarten, or other institutional frames, such as doctor’s offices or other administrative institutional centres) with typically superficial interactions. Navigating such places is crucial for the integration success for their families, which becomes an important task for this demographic group. This leads to the proxy integration of these women into the Austrian institutional sphere. They must assume the role of the hyper-competent administrator who can seamlessly navigate various institutions so that the integration of their children and husbands can be successful, yet due to the advocacy being in favour of their family members and not their own, we cannot talk of real integration, only integration by proxy. Simultaneously, it is important to note that there is no emotional, identity-based integration either; they do not associate themselves with the Viennese culture or values despite the effort they put into understanding and navigating their institutions.

If necessary, I actively intervene in the institutional operation. For example, with the doctor . . . I took a Hungarian evaluation form, which I translated, so that they could try to fill in the criteria. (Two children, before and after migration, inactive, married, eight years in migration)

All you need to know about my relationships at the playground and at school is that with Austrians, the relationship only goes as far as greetings. (Two children before and after migration, married, active, more than 10 years in migration)

My children like to study at the Austrian school, they were not traumatized by the school. But I saw that it was not over. I have to spend the afternoons with them to supplement what they might not get either because of their Hungarianness or because of unprofessionalism. The entire school system is terribly mediocre, they do not expect outstanding performance from anyone. (Two children before and after migration, married, inactive, more than 10 years in migration)

I’m fine with everyone and we chat very nicely in the locker room, but we don’t do optional extracurricular activities together. Not even when they call. I always try to avoid them. (One child after migration, married, inactive, more than five years in migration)

On the other hand, women’s social integration primarily occurs within the Hungarian community in Vienna, triggering their co-ethnic integration. They are strongly connected to the Hungarian community outside and have no relevant connection to Austrian social groups. Because of Vienna’s cosmopolitan nature, women living there do not feel any pressure to integrate into Viennese society; however, this is not due to something like an integration paradox that Geurts et al. (2022) theorize. The integration paradox suggests that migrants with higher educational attainment often show a lower level of national belongings to the host country than migrants with lower education, meaning that more educated migrants feel less at home in their new country. According to their research, the “world citizenship” as an underlying mechanism of higher educated migrants’ ideology may explain their weaker attachment to their country of residence. Instead, the weak belongings to the host nationalities of the examined Hungarian women can be explained by that it ensures a life within their comfort zone, and like economic migrants, they are not motivated to integrate culturally (Boski 2013).

We don’t want our children to identify with this kind of society . . . Austrians lack deep human connections. Everything is much more beautiful on the surface than in the reality. (Two children after migration, partnered, nine years migration)

Several interconnected factors contribute to the formation of segregated groups. First, the growing size of the Hungarian population can easily lead to the comfortable situation of finding mothers in a similar position. This, in turn, reduces the interest in finding external friends and increases isolation (Dunbar 2021) as the size of the homogenous group that gives a sense of security increases (Krueger 2007). Furthermore, in an uncertain migration situation where there is no objective standard, people often compare themselves to others to establish the validity of their own situation through observation-based social learning and social-comparison mechanisms (Bandura 1971; Festinger 1954).

We meet Hungarian mothers like this, in a playground, in a park here, or at someone’s house, so sometimes we meet a few with children. So, having someone to talk to about everything is nice. (Two children, before and after migration, divorced, active, more than 10 years in migration)

Group identity is based on stereotypes constructed in contrast to Austrians. In such a situation, stereotypes against other cultures and nationalities are reinforced, and group identity is strengthened; for example, the BIRG effect (Tajfel 1978) is displayed. The BIRG effect (“basking in reflected glory”) is a phenomenon where individuals present themselves in a positive light by sharing the successes of a group regardless of whether the individual’s performance is actually related to the group’s successes. In the case of the Hungarian women studied, this phenomenon appears in the identity-affirming narratives of co-ethnic mother communities. This narrative helps cohesion within the Hungarian community and separation outward, toward Austrian communities. Mothers cited numerous examples that downgrade Austrian values and Austrian people as justification for their self-segregation (Tajfel et al. 1979). Women who find it difficult to let go of their roots at home and long for a life away from the host country tend to regard Hungarian values above Austrian values (Freitas-Monteiro 2024).

In the hospital, when my daughter was a newborn, the nurse told me that bathing is enough about once a week, and then it dawned on me that my God, that’s why Austrians are so unkempt, because it starts from birth. (One child after migration, partnered, five years in migration)

Austrians are horribly selfish people. Austrian mothers are terribly cold. I see it in the playground in general. They don’t sit down to play with their children, they just sit and smoke. (Two children after migration, married, seven years in migration)

When you see Gryllus or Judit Halász ³ it does not mean the same to them as it did to me, so they give us an essence that we do not have elsewhere. My husband and I agreed that the cultural blossoming from the age of zero to six—that’s what we call it—is entirely different in different countries, and I think Hungary is very cool in this respect. (Two children before and after migration, married, inactive, five years in migration)

It is highly relevant to see that accordingly, women’s identity construction often centres around being a stay-at-home mother with young children in Vienna. This identity results in an accessible joint group membership and creates a significant shared sense of identity within the group. It is striking that the cultural similarities with the Austrians regarding motherhood seem to remain invisible to Hungarian women. Similar values do not build a bridge between the two social groups, while the labour market situation of Austrian mothers would be an easy example for mothers to follow. Since the husband ensures the family’s livelihood, mothers could choose the path of Austrian women without remorse instead of self-segregation. This positively affects the women’s behaviour and perceptions of other group members. The group’s self-serving attributions and different peer categorizations can be observed. It can be said that the group under study has a set of shared beliefs, views, values, and emotions that form a specific system with specific characteristics, which can be explained based on living together in Viennese society and which make the collective consciousness of the group under study a distinct reality. The interactions of the group members outside their homes in Vienna are primarily between themselves, so they have an accurate knowledge that others also hold these consciousnesses and intersubjective social representations of the group.

But I am also influenced by the fact that mothers live like that here so that the others do not work either. (One child, before migration, partnership, inactive, more than 10 years in migration)

All of these presented mechanisms together explain the lack of belonging associated with proxy integration and its strong presence in co-ethnic integration. Women are in a complex life situation and mental state in which they consciously make the decision to operate the proxy and co-ethnic integrations in parallel. In order to avoid the shame of de-qualification, women have a legitimate excuse for not going to work since they manage the integration of their family. They can show the outside world that they have integrated into Austria since they maintain contact with the institutions. In Hungarian communities, they receive confirmation that it is impossible to connect better with Austrians since they are different from them and can be in an emotionally safe environment. This way, they do not have to leave their comfort zone. The comfortable backstage world is financially maintained by the husband and culturally legitimized by the Hungarian value system.

Proximity as legitimizing mechanism

Vienna’s location, which is very close to the Hungarian border, is a relevant specificity in the backstage integration of these women. Faced with labour market losses, tied migration, and the difficulties of motherhood, mothers hesitate to settle permanently in Vienna. The proximity of Vienna to Hungary makes this easier. The combination of all of these features reinforces the sense of the transitory nature of migration and helps to identify with the backstage role. This sense of temporariness helps ease the tension of labour market inactivity, allows for an overemphasis on the maternal role within the family, and also legitimizes convenience-based integration.

My feeling about the intellectual Hungarian mothers is that they are coasting. . . . They cannot articulate their long-term goal; right now, I am at the point where I am studying, and I am learning a language. Generally speaking, they [Hungarian mothers] say I am not yet at the stage to work and will never work. Some mothers have lived here for five, six, or seven years. They are intellectuals who are just learning a language. They are constantly learning the language, not working or doing anything else. (Two children, before and after migration, inactive, married, four years in migration)

The proximity makes it easy to stay in touch with those at home, cherish cultural values, look back, and constantly reassess migration decisions.

It was two and a half hours by train, so it wasn’t a long distance, and there was a time when I went home every two months, even for a weekend, leaving on Friday night and coming back on Sunday night. (One child, after migration, married, active, more than 10 years in migration)

Those who go home on weekends will never get used to it, because after a while you have to decide whether you live here or somewhere else. (Two children before migration, married, inactive with casual work, five years in migration)

As women maintain links with their home country, they also keep the pathways open for temporary migration (Triandafyllidou 2022) so they can return home if needed.

I hoped that one day we would go home . . . I thought that one day this would be over. (Three children, before and after migration, married, active, more than 10 years in migration)

Transience in mothers’ lives is also likely to be a legitimating tool. It legitimizes the absence from the labour market because they can say it is easy to return home from Vienna anytime. Consequently, transience is likely a dysfunctional or unviable reference point for those who settle further away from home.

Then there were different scenarios, like we will go back to Hungary, and I will try to find a job there. (One child, before migration, married, inactive with casual work, six years in migration)

We had a very definite idea. My husband and I agreed on three years . . . the eldest child starting school and the youngest starting kindergarten, and we thought that we would be home by then. (Two children, before and after migration, married, inactive, seven years in migration)

But now this topic has been forgotten. I even quit my job at home. (Two children, after migration, married, inactive, seven years in migration)

It is important to note that geographical proximity and the feeling of transience are not causally related but rather phenomena and narrative that go hand in hand in the lives of the women studied. For women, transience is a means of legitimizing their status and explaining their difficult situation, but it is important to emphasize that this is linked to a life course (motherhood with young children) and the secure income of their husbands.

Social surfing

The act of social surfing facilitates the enactment of backstage integration. It denotes an attitude of opportunistic social mobility or strategic group affiliation (essentially as a free rider) as women navigate the social landscape to determine when it is beneficial to perform a strategic switch—moving from a Hungarian context to an Austrian context or vice versa—for utilitarian adaptation. In this framework, navigation refers to the ongoing tactical assessment of which context is most advantageous in a given situation, while switching represents the functional execution, the discrete transition from the Hungarian context to the Austrian context or from the Austrian context to a Hungarian one based on that assessment. During social surfing, a dual-identity individual emphasizes her nationality in one context (in communities of Hungarian mothers in Vienna) and her integration identity in another (e.g., a parent in an Austrian school, wife of a man who works in Austria), according to her current interests.

Moms have to really put in the effort to create an alternative Hungarian reality for their children, but at the same time we also blend in with what the Austrians are much better at. (Three children before and after migration, married, nine years in migration)

Institution-related surfing in women’s lives means that their participation in and use of institutions is selective and instrumental (almost exclusively linked to institutions related to children), but at the same time, women do not identify with the values and functioning of institutions, so their use is limited to practical entry and exit. The feeling of emotional and cultural belonging remains in the Hungarian environment. When navigating Austrian institutions, mothers make the conscious decision to switch from their emotional role within the Hungarian context to a competent, Austrian-aligned administrator role to represent their family’s interests. However successful they are in this assumed host country-aligned role, they do not identify with the values of the host country, they are only representing the interest of their families, integration happens by proxy of the children, and only for the practical promotion of interest are they integrating. They want to remain outside of the Austian system and values, so they do: It is not an internalized, emotional or intrinsic switch but a practical and benefit-oriented one.

We coined the term “social surfing” in order to capture a behaviour that is particularly characteristic of and prevalent in the accounts of these mothers who are highly educated but become de-emancipated within migration. In our view, it is a behaviour that is not adequately explained by existing frameworks such as transnationalism or liminality. Although, it is important to keep in mind that further careful research would be required to determine whether this practise is specific to this group or can also be observed among other migrant populations. We suppose that the phenomenon fits into the perspective of transnationalism (Faist 2015; Kivisto 2001; Schiller, Basch, and Blanc-Szanton 1992) insofar as it interprets everyday life not in a single nation-state space but in a cross-border social field; however, social surfing is not simply the experience of boundary change and lasting set of ties that reaches across borders but the tactical navigation between them. Nor is it simply a temporally and spatially uncertain state of in-betweenness (Katta et al. 2024; Turner 1969; Weidenstedt et al. 2024) as literature on liminality defines as it is a strategic, conscious role switching and mobility between affiliated groups for benefit.

Interviewees often articulated the duality as a layered form of belonging in which Hungarian identity functions as an emotional and cultural core while Austrian affiliation operates as an instrumental extension:

The main root is Hungarian, the side root is Austrian. (Two children, before and after migration, married, inactive, seven years in migration)

At the same time, they feel excluded or are excluded to a lesser or greater extent from the Austrian group in Vienna according to their German language skills. Social surfing in this migratory context is thus about mobility between identities. Social surfing is theorized based on the multiplicity of egos (Sorokin 1947), according to which each enduring role is a separate part of the self within a personality.

It is like they [Hungarian mothers] are taking the best out of everything; they do not work here, and the kids are doing well. Why doesn’t anyone who lives here belong here? Why do they spend the summer at home? Why do they make friends with Hungarians? Why doesn’t anyone here accept that I am already a Viennese? For me, it is so ambiguous. . . . Practically no family spends Christmas here. Moreover, in England, that is not a question. In England, we live there, so we have our Christmas there. However, here, since it is accessible, we take the good [things] from here and the good [things] from there. (2 children, before and after migration, inactive, married, 4 years migration).

Social surfing can occur as migrants build their assessment of social position on how they feel included in social groups by others and by their own senses. However, migrants are often made aware that these two assessments do not necessarily overlap. Therefore, migrants could create—through the enactment of specific symbolic boundaries—new social boundaries between themselves and others (Stock 2021). In the case of Hungarian mothers, their contrast group can become their husbands, the group of women in low-skilled jobs, or Hungarian mothers who did not migrate. Migration changes the composition of the social spaces into which people are incorporated and shifts the rules and values that decide what gives someone social respect or status (Reed-Danahay 2017). Migrants’ assessments of social position are not necessarily bounded by a social space framed by the country; since migrants have social relations spanning across countries, it enables them to situate themselves in transnational spaces in which status hierarchies are reconfigured through cultural, social, and economic forces that are not exclusively shaped by state forces (Stock 2021). As the women studied have close connections to Hungarian society due to the proximity, this dual comparison could be even more enhanced.