FAMILY PRACTICES ACROSS GENERATIONS AND NATIONAL BORDERS
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.2478/subbs-2018-0015Keywords:
family practices, circulation of care, intergenerational relationships, transnational families, migrationAbstract
Part of the mobility and migration process, family relationships and mutual support are subject of various transformations. Spatial separation between family members creates a specific setting for analysis which leads to the necessity of understanding how family practices are arranged and developed across time and distance. The present study focuses on the dyad emigrated adult children and non-migrated elderly parents living in Romania and on the types of intergenerational family practices that occur between these dyads across national borders. Our analysis of family practices relies on tracing certain set of actions taken by family members in order to maintain, consolidate, and ultimately to display family solidarity. We consider here various forms of practices, namely technological mediated contacts, visits, time-consuming practical support and financial assistance. Analyses are based on the national survey entitled Intergenerational solidarity in the context of work migration abroad. The situation of elderly left at home, which provides empirical data about the relationships from a distance between elderly parents living in Romania and their migrant adult children. Descriptive statistics are provided in order to assess the flow directions, the frequency and the intensity of each type of intergenerational support. Our empirical evidence highlights that transnational support is asymmetrical and multidirectional. Results also support that intergenerational support and family relationships can no longer be theoretically approached in terms of a simple dichotomy.References
Agresti, A. (2002). Categorical data analysis. Second Edition. New York: Wiley.
Baldassar, L. (2001). Visits Home: migration experiences between Italy and Australia. Australia: Melbourne University Press.
Baldassar, L. (2008). Missing Kin and Longing to be Together: Emotions and the Construction of Co-presence in Transnational Relationships. Journal of Intercultural Studies, 29(3): 247-266.
Baldassar, L. (2011). Italian Migrants in Australia and their Relationship to Italy: Return Visits, Transnational Caregiving and the Second Generation. Journal of Mediterranean Studies, 20(2): 255-282.
Baldassar, L. and Merla, L. (2014). Transnational Family Caregiving through the Lens of Circulation. In L. Baldassar and L. Merla, Transnational Families, Migration and the Circulation of Care. Understanding Mobility and Absence in Family Life (3-24). New York: Routledge.
Baldassar, L., Baldock, C. V. and Wilding, R. (2007). Families Caring Across Borders. Migration, Ageing and Transnational Caregiving. New York: Palgrave Macmillan.
Baykara-Krumme, H. and Fokkema, T. (2018). The impact of migration on intergenerational solidarity types. Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies.
Bryceson, D. and Vuorella, U. (2002). Transnational Families in the Twenty-First Century. In D. Bryceson and U. Vuorela, The Transnational Family. New European Frontiers and Global Networks (3-30). Oxford, New York: Berg.
Ducu, V. (2016). Experiences from “Home” – Belonging to a Transnational Family. Romanian Journal of Population Studies, X (1): 91-104.
Eurostat (2018). News release “4% of EU citizens of working age live in another EU Member State”, 28 May. http://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/documents/2995521/8926076/3-28052018-AP-EN.pdf/48c473e8-c2c1-4942-b2a4-5761edacda37 [accessed on 2018, August 17].
Finch, J. (1989). Family Obligations and Social Change. Cambridge, UK: Polity Press.
Finch, J. (2007). Displaying Families. Sociology, Sage Publications, 41(1): 65-81.
Finch, J. and Mason, J. (1993). Negotiating Family Responsibilities. New York: Tavistock/ Routledge.
Gardner, K. and Grillo, R. (2002). Transnational households and ritual: an overview. Global Networks, 2(3): 179-190.
Giddens, A. (1992). The Transformation of Intimacy, Sexuality, Love, and Eroticism in Modern Societies. Cambridge, UK: Polity Press.
Giddens, A. (1994). Beyond Left and Right — the Future of Radical Politics. Cambridge: Polity.
Glick-Schiller, N., Basch, L. and Blanc-Szanton, C. (1992). Towards a Definition of Transnationalism. Introductory Remarks and Research Questions. Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences, 645(1): ix-xiv.
Hărăguș, M. and Telegdi-Csetri, V. (2018). Intergenerational Solidarity in Romanian Transnational Families. In I. Crespi, S. G. Meda and L. Merla (Eds.). Making Multicultural Families in Europe. Gender and Intergenerational Relations (161-175). Switzerland: Palgrave Macmillan.
Hărăguș, M., Foldes, I. and Savu, V. (2018). Older Parents in Romania as a Resource for their Migrant Adult Children. In V. Ducu, M. Nedelcu and A. Telegdi-Csetri (Eds.). Childhood and Parenting in Transnational Settings (155-173). Switzerland: Springer.
Karpinska, K. and Dykstra, P. A. (2018). Intergenerational ties across borders: a typology of the relationships between Polish migrants in the Netherlands and their ageing parents. Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies. https://doi.org/10.1080/1369183X.2018.1485204.
Kilkey, M. and Merla, L. (2014). Situating transnational families’ care-giving arrangements: the role of institutional contexts. Global Networks, 14(2): 210-229.
Lazarsfeld, P. and Henry, N. (1968). Latent structure analysis. New York: Houghton-Mifflin.
Linzer, D. A. and Lewis, J. (2011). "poLCA: An R Package for Polytomous Variable Latent Class Analysis." Journal of Statistical Software. 42(10): 1-29. http://www.jstatsoft.org/v42/i10.
Linzer, D. A. and Lewis, L. (2013). "poLCA: Polytomous Variable Latent Class Analysis." R package version 1.4. http://dlinzer.github.com/poLCA.
Litwak, E. and Kulis, S. (1987). Technology, Proximity, and Measures of Kin Support. Journal of Marriage and Family, 49(3): 649-661.
Madianou, M. (2016). Ambient co-presence: transnational family practices in polymedia environments. Global Networks, 16(2): 183-201.
Madianou, M. and Miller, D. (2012). Polymedia: Towards a new theory of digital media in interpersonal communication. International Journal of Cultural Studies 16(2): 169-187.
Magidson, J. and Vermunt, J. K. (2001). Latent class factor and cluster models, bi-plots and related graphical displays. Sociological Methodology, 31: 223-264.
Magidson, J. and Vermunt, J. K. (2004). Latent class models. In D. Kaplan (Ed.), Handbook of quantitative methods in social science research, Newbury Park, CA: Sage.
McLachlan, G. J. and Krishnan, T. (1997). The EM Algorithm and Extensions. New York: John Wiley & Sons.
Morgan, D. (1996). Family Connections: An introduction to Family Studies. Cambridge, UK: Polity Press.
Morgan, D. (2011). Rethinking family practices. London: Palgrave Macmillan.
Nedelcu M. (2009). La génération zéro: du sédentaire a l’acteur circulant. Effects de mobilité sur la génération des parents des migrants roumains hautement qualifies à Toronto a l’ère du numérique. In G. Cortes and L. Faret (Eds.). Les Circulations Transnationales: Lire les Turbulences Migratoires Contemporaines (187-198). Paris: Armand Colin.
Nedelcu, M. (2007). « Je passe ma retraite au Canada ». Quand les parents des migrants roumains à Toronto suivent leurs enfants dans la migration. In C. Audebert et E. (Eds.). Ma Mung, Les migrations internationales: enjeux contemporains et questions nouvelles (219-234). Bilbao: Université de Deusto/HumanitarianNet.
Nedelcu, M. and Wyss, M. (2016). ‘Doing Family’ through ICT-mediated ordinary co-presence: transnational communication practices of Romanian migrants in Switzerland. Global Networks, 16(2): 202-218.
Olwig, K. F. (2002). A respectable livelihood: Mobility and identity in a Caribbean family. In N. N. Sorenson & K. F. Olwig (Eds.). Work and migration: Life and livelihoods in a globalizing world (85–105). New York: Routledge.
Parsons, T. (1951). The Social System. UK: Routledge & Kegan Paul Ltd.
Rossi, A. S. and Rossi, P. H. (1990). Of Human Bonding: Parent-child Relations across the Life Course. New York: A. de Gruyter.
Szydlik, M. (2016). Sharing Lives. Adult Children and Parents. London and New York: Routledge Taylor & FRANCIS Group.
Treas, J. and Mazumdar, S. (2004). Kinkeeping and Caregiving: Contributions of Older People in Immigrant Families. Journal of Comparative Family Studies, 35(1): 105-122.
United Nations, Department of Economic and Social Affairs, Population Division (2017). World Population Prospects. The 2017 Revision. Volume I: Comprehensive Tables. New York: United Nations.
Wilding, R. (2006). ‘Virtual’ intimacies? Families communicating across transnational contexts. Global Networks, 6(2): 125-142.
Downloads
Published
How to Cite
Issue
Section
License
Copyright (c) 2018 Studia Universitatis Babeș-Bolyai Sociologia
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.
