The term career development emerged in Western and industrialised contexts. However, it has been adapted and reinterpreted across different cultures worldwide, resulting in a diversity of understandings. Such diversity becomes significant for migrants moving from economically developing to developed countries, where employment structures differ greatly. Given that employment constitutes one of the main predictors of migrants' integration into host societies, supporting them through career development services gains critical relevance. However, economically developed countries' career support strategies often approach migrants as a homogenous group, relying on universal Western frameworks rather than tailored to the varied conceptions of career development by diverse migrant communities (e.g., migrant women from economically developing countries). To design responsive career support, it is essential to understand how diverse migrants conceive of "career" and "career development." This research aimed to explore the conceptions of these terms held by migrant women from economically developing countries.
Guided by an integrative care-justice moral framework, 10 migrant women were recruited through purposive sampling and attended a single semi-structured reflexive interview informed by narrative inquiry. They shared their perspectives about what career and career development signify to them, and reflected on one academic definition of 'career development'. Descriptive content analysis was employed to analyse data, while preserving participants' unique perspectives and contexts.
Findings revealed that participants held varied conceptions of "career" and "career development", often closely associated with upward progression and advancement within their work lives, which only partially aligns with academic conceptions that frame career development as a lifelong-lifewide process embedded in and influenced by personal, familial, social, and environmental-societal factors. The findings underscore the importance of attending to participants' local knowledges, highlighting how their understandings are grounded in lived experiences, cultural and contextual understandings of work, and the unique circumstances surrounding migration. Research, practice, and policy implications will be outlined.