We describe a gendered pattern of circulation of youth through households in two Micronesian societies. Yapese girls and female teens shift into vertically extended households, where elders reside, between ages 11 and 17. The opposite pattern pertains in Kosrae, where females shift between ages 11 and 14 into two-generation households. The opposing patterns are explained by opposite divisions of labor, with Yap having a female farming system and Kosrae having a male farming system. In both instances the residence shifts of female youth between middle childhood and the late teens involve movements into the kinds of households where they do the most work, per capita. We explain the pattern first in terms of the desire to teach young people socially valued work roles, and, secondly, in terms of the need for their labor. These analyses demonstrate the need for processual modes of understanding household composition and its effects on the formation of gender roles and transmission of knowledge.

Economic and political changes in Palau in the last two decades have led to a rapid increase in the numbers of foreign workers. At current levels of growth, Palauans could become a minority in their own country. We examine the global processes that have produced this phenomenon and discuss their social and cultural impacts on Palau. In doing so we examine ways the meanings of work in Palau are understood, and how these are changing. We conclude that a new distinctly Palauan system of occupations is emerging that is neither traditional nor purely western and that is widely shared between Palauans and non-Palauans.

Founded by individuals pursuing higher education in the United States, the Marshallese community in Orange County today also represents family and national interests in access to business opportunities, employment, education, medical services, and other goals. This community has become an "official" Marshallese overseas community, site of the first Marshallese consulate in the mainland United States, and a link between overseas Marshallese and the home islands. Individuals and family units traverse networks of inter-linked households, high- lighting processes of Islanders' investments, including at least a short-term reversal of theoretically expected remittance flows. We explore the process of community formation, and compare rural and urban sites in the Marshall Islands to call attention to the community's place in a system of geographically dispersed locations within the global political economy.