Migrant women often encounter systemic challenges that not only hinder their participation in paid work but also impact other domains of their lives, collectively disrupting their career development. A great number of women from economically developing countries enter Australia as secondary-visa applicants, accompanying their husbands (i.e., primary applicants). In navigating work-life transitions, secondary-visa holder migrant women (SVMW) face significant uncertainties and constraints, shaped by multiple contexts and systems of influence, that disrupt their career development.
Grounded in the Systems Theory Framework and an ethic of care, this research utilised narrative inquiry to explore life-career stories of former SVMW, now permanent residents or Australian citizens, to retrospectively reflect on their career development at the intersection of gender and migration. Narrative inquiry facilitated storytelling and enabled an exploration of the participants' narrative nuances and voices. Six former SVMW were recruited through purposive sampling to attend a single semi-structured interview.
To keep participants' voices and perspectives alive, the "voice-centred relational method of analysis" (VCRA) was employed as a method of analysis to amplify the participants' unique and contrapuntal voices. The four distinct VCRA stages enabled the researcher to identify the cultural, contextual, and relational voices that operate in participants' life-career stories, and to position these voices within the broader social structures and dominant discourses that surround them.
By attending to the multiple voices of each participant, the findings highlight how SVMW navigate their work-life transitions amid relational, contextual, and structural influences, diversely shaping their career development across pre- and post-migration contexts. This research underscores the importance of co-constructive and participant-centred approaches like narrative inquiry, which prioritise care and amplify the nuanced and often-overlooked experiences of migrant women labelled as "dependents", thereby promoting social justice. Implications for research, practice, and policy that support SVMW's transition to education and workforce will be outlined.