Ruth Martin is a Research Associate of the Europe-Japan Research Centre at Oxford Brookes University where she recently completed her PhD thesis on Japanese expatriate wives in the UK. Her interests lie in gender and migration, and she continues with fieldwork that will enable her to follow up her Japanese informants and their children in the long term.

• Acknowledgements; 1 Introduction; 2 Salarymen, their wives and overseas transfer; 3 Overseas transfer to the UK; 4 What overseas transfer means to wives; 5 Japanese housewives' roles in the UK: Caring for the family and maintaining links with Japan; 6 Japanese housewives' roles in the UK: Care of young children and education; 7 Life outside the confines of 'housewife': Enriching aspects of overseas transfer; 8 Effect of overseas transfer on wives; 9 Conclusion; Bibliography; Index