Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-rdxmf Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-22T19:57:08.089Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Transnational families and the circulation of care: a Romanian–German case study

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  19 September 2017

ELISABETH SCHRÖDER-BUTTERFILL  and
JULIA SCHONHEINZ
ELISABETH SCHRÖDER-BUTTERFILL*
Affiliation:
Centre for Research on Ageing, University of Southampton, UK.
JULIA SCHONHEINZ
Affiliation:
Research and Innovation Services and Centre for Research on Ageing, University of Southampton, UK.
*
Address for correspondence: Elisabeth Schröder-Butterfill, Centre for Research on Ageing, University of Southampton, Highfield, Southampton SO17 1BJ, UK E-mail: [email protected]
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

This article contributes to our understanding of transnational family relationships and the circulation of care. We are interested in understanding how large-scale emigration affects the support and care of older people in the origin country. Using in-depth interviews and participant observation, we examine the significance of transnational family support for older people, and the ways in which migrant children and other kin care for elderly relatives from afar. Our case study is of the Transylvanian Saxons, a German-speaking minority in Romania, who experienced mass-exodus to Germany following the end of socialism in 1990. The lapse of time since the exodus allows us to examine how transnational family practices evolve, and what the challenges are to maintaining family-hood over time and distance. Contrary to expectations, we find that material family support from Germany to Romania is not significant and has declined. Care, by contrast, remains an important part of what most transnational families provide, although practices of ‘caring about’ are more prevalent than hands-on ‘caring for’. Counter to optimistic accounts of transnational family care in the literature, we argue that the difficulties and challenges for older people of being cared for by distant family members are fundamental, and strong transnational family ties are not an inevitable outcome of migration.

Keywords

transnational family supportcareremittanceshousesRomaniaGermanyinterviewsparticipant observation
Type
Article
Information
Ageing & Society , Volume 39 , Issue 1 , January 2019 , pp. 45 - 73
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2017 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Ambrosetti, E., Cela, E. and Fokkema, T. 2013. The differential impact of the legal status of migrants in Italy on transnationalism: just a matter of time and integration? Journal of Mediterranean Studies, 22, 1, 33–60.Google Scholar
Ariza, M. 2014. Care circulation, absence and affect in transnational families. In Baldassar, L. and Merla, L. (eds), Transnational Families, Migration and Circulation of Care: Understanding Mobility and Absence in Family Life. Routledge, New York, 94–114.Google Scholar
Attias-Donfut, C. 2013. Migration, retirement and transnationalism in the Mediterranean region. In Troisi, J. and von Kondradowitz, H.-J. (eds), Ageing in the Mediterranean. Policy Press, Bristol, UK, 173–96.Google Scholar
Attias-Donfut, C. 2016. Older migrants’ ageing and dying. In Torres, S. and Karl, U. (eds), Ageing in Contexts of Migration. Routledge, Abingdon, UK, 83–95.Google Scholar
Baldassar, L. 2007 a. Transnational families and aged care: the mobility of care and migrancy of ageing. Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies, 33, 2, 275–97.Google Scholar
Baldassar, L. 2007 b. Transnational families and the provision of moral and emotional support: the relationship between truth and distance. Identities: Global Studies in Culture and Power, 14, 4, 385–409.Google Scholar
Baldassar, L. and Baldock, C. 2000. Linking migration and family studies: transnational migrants and the care of ageing parents. In Agozino, B. (ed.), Theoretical and Methodological Issues in Migration Research: Interdisciplinary, Intergenerational and International Perspectives. Ashgate, Aldershot, UK, 61–89.Google Scholar
Baldassar, L., Baldock, C. V. and Wilding, R. 2006. Families Caring Across Borders: Migration, Ageing and Transnational Caregiving. Palgrave Macmillan, London.Google Scholar
Baldassar, L. and Merla, L. 2014 a. Introduction: transnational family caregiving through the lens of circulation. In Baldassar, L. and Merla, L. (eds), Transnational Families, Migration and Circulation of Care: Understanding Mobility and Absence in Family Life. Routledge, New York, 3–24.Google Scholar
Baldassar, L. and Merla, L. (eds) 2014 b. Transnational Families, Migration and Circulation of Care: Understanding Mobility and Absence in Family Life. Routledge, London.Google Scholar
Baldassar, L. and Wilding, R. 2014. Middle-class transnational caregiving? The circulation of care between family and extended kin networks in the Global North. In Baldassar, L. and Merla, L. (eds), Transnational Families, Migration and Circulation of Care: Understanding Mobility and Absence in Family Life. Routledge, New York, 235–51.Google Scholar
Baldock, C. 2000. Migrants and their parents: care-giving from a distance. Journal of Family Issues, 21, 2, 205–24.Google Scholar
Basch, L., Glick Schiller, N. and Szanton Blanc, C. 1994. Nations Unbound: Transnational Projects, Postcolonial Predicaments, and Deterritorialized Nation-states. Overseas Publishers Association, Amsterdam.Google Scholar
Basu, P. 2007. Highland Homecomings: Genealogy and Heritage Tourism in the Scottish Diaspora. Routledge, Abingdon, UK.Google Scholar
Bauer, T. and Zimmermann, K. 1997. Network migration of ethnic Germans. International Migration Review, 31, 1, 143–9.Google Scholar
Bettio, F., Simonazzi, A. and Villa, P. 2006. Change in care regimes and female migration – the ‘care drain’ in the Mediterranean. Journal of European Social Policy, 16, 3, 271–86.Google Scholar
Bilecen, B. and Sienkiewicz, J. 2015. Informal social protection networks of migrants: typical patterns in different transnational spaces. Population, Space and Place, 21, 3, 227–43.Google Scholar
Blakemore, K. 1999. International migration in later life: social care and policy implications. Ageing & Society, 19, 6, 761–74.Google Scholar
Bruckner, W. 1990. Die soziale Verpflichtung im Selbstverständnis der Siebenbürger Sachsen. In Schuster, W. (ed.), Heimat als Aufgabe. Landsmannschaft der Siebenbürger Sachsen in Deutschland, Starnberg, Germany, 7–32.Google Scholar
Bryceson, D. and Vuorela, U. (eds) 2002. The Transnational Family: New European Frontiers and Global Networks. Berg, Oxford.Google Scholar
Christou, A. 2006. Deciphering diaspora – translating transnationalism: family dynamics, identity constructions and the legacy of ‘home’ in second-generation Greek-American return migration. Ethnic and Racial Studies, 29, 6, 1040–56.Google Scholar
Coles, R. L. 2001. Elderly narrative reflections on the contradictions in Turkish village family life after migration of adult children. Journal of Aging Studies, 15, 4, 383–406.Google Scholar
Cook, J. and Liu, J. 2016. Can ‘distant water … quench the instant thirst’? The renegotiation of familial support in rural China in the face of extensive out migration. Journal of Aging Studies, 37, 1, 29–39.Google Scholar
Eurostat 2016. Consumer Prices – Inflation and Comparative Price Levels. Available online at http://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/statistics-explained/index.php/Consumer_prices_-_inflation_and_comparative_price_levels#Price_level_indices:_comparison_of_price_levels_between_countries [Accessed 14 August 2017].Google Scholar
Finch, J. and Mason, J. 1993. Negotiating Family Responsibilities. Routledge, London.Google Scholar
Fisher, B. and Tronto, J. 1990. Toward a feminist theory of caring. In Abel, E. K. and Nelson, M. (eds), Circles of Care. Albany State University of New York Press, New York, 35–62.Google Scholar
Gabanyi, A. U. 2000. Geschichte der Deutschen in Rumänien. Informationen zur Politischen Bildung 267, Bundeszentrale für Politische Bildung, Bonn, Germany.Google Scholar
Gamburd, M. R. 2015. Migrant remittances, population ageing and intergenerational family obligations in Sri Lanka. In Hoang, L. A. and Yeoh, B. (eds), Transnational Labour Migration, Remittances and the Changing Family in Asia. Palgrave Macmillan, Basingstoke, UK, 139–64.Google Scholar
Gündisch, K. and Beer, M. 2005. Siebenbürgen und die Siebenbürger Sachsen. Langen Müller, München, Germany.Google Scholar
Hărăguș, M. and Telegdi-Csetri, V. 2017. Intergenerational solidarity in Romanian transnational families. In Crespi, I. C., Meda, S. and Merla, L. (eds), Making Multicultural Families in Europe: Gender and Generational Relations. Palgrave Macmillan, London.Google Scholar
Hihn, D. and Schenk, W. 1996. Aussiedlungsmotive, Standortwahl und Integration von Siebenbürger Sachsen in Deutschland, Untersucht an der ehemaligen Bewohnerschaft von Reussen. Zeitschrift für Siebenbürgische Landeskunde, 19, 2, 167–88.Google Scholar
Hüsch, H. G., Baier, H. and Meinhardt, E. 2013. Kauf von Freiheit. Honterus, Hermannstadt, Romania.Google Scholar
Ingenhoven, K. 2003. ‘Ghetto’ oder gelungene Integration? Untersuchung sozialräumlicher Entwicklungsprozesse in der bedeutendsten Siedlungskonzentration von Aussiedlern aus Rumänien. LIT-Verlag, Münster, Germany.Google Scholar
Kilkey, M. and Merla, L. 2014. Situating transnational families’ care-giving arrangements: the role of institutional contexts. Global Networks, 14, 2, 210–47.Google Scholar
King, R., Cela, E., Fokkema, T. and Vullnetari, J. 2014. The migration and well-being of the zero generation: transgenerational care, grandparenting, and loneliness amongst Albanian older people. Population, Space and Place, 20, 8, 728–38.Google Scholar
King, R. and Vullnetari, J. 2006. Orphan pensioners and migrating grandparents: the impact of mass migration on older people in rural Albania. Ageing & Society, 26, 5, 783–816.Google Scholar
Knodel, J. and Saengtienchai, C. 2007. Rural parents with urban children: social and economic implications of migration for the rural elderly in Thailand. Population, Space and Place, 13, 3, 193–210.Google Scholar
Kreager, P. 2006. Migration, social structure and old-age support networks: a comparison of three Indonesian communities. Ageing & Society, 26, 1, 37–60.Google Scholar
Kreager, P. and Schröder-Butterfill, E. 2015. Differential impacts of migration on the family networks of older people in Indonesia: a comparative analysis. In Hoang, L. A. and Yeoh, B. (eds), Transnational Labour Migration, Remittances and the Changing Family in Asia. Palgrave Macmillan, Basingstoke, UK, 165–93.Google Scholar
Martiny, D. 2007. Verwandtenunterhalt für erwachsene Kinder und alte Eltern. In Berghahn, S. (ed.), Unterhalt und Existenzsicherung: Recht und Wirklichkeit in Deutschland. Nomos, Baden-Baden, Germany, 55–80.Google Scholar
Migration Watch UK 2013. Incentives for Romanian and Bulgarian migration to the UK. Migration Watch Briefing Papers, 4, 20.Google Scholar
Miltiades, H. B. 2002. The social and psychological effect of an adult child's emigration on non-immigrant Asian Indian elderly parents Journal of Cross-cultural Gerontology, 17, 1, 33–55.Google Scholar
Nguyen, H. T., Liu, A. and Booth, A. 2012. Monetary transfers from children and the labour supply of elderly parents: evidence from Vietnam. Journal of Development Studies, 48, 8, 1177–91.Google Scholar
Piperno, F. 2012. The impact of female emigration on families and the welfare state in countries of origin: the case of Romania. International Migration, 50, 5, 189–204.Google Scholar
Reynolds, T. and Zontini, E. 2014. Care circulation in transnational families: social and cultural capitals in Italian and Caribbean migrant communities in Britain. In Baldassar, L. and Merla, L. (eds), Transnational Families, Migration and Circulation of Care: Understanding Mobility and Absence in Family Life. Routledge, New York, 203–19.Google Scholar
Rindfuss, R., Piotrowski, M., Entwisle, B., Edmeades, J. and Faust, K. 2012. Migrant remittances and the web of family obligations: ongoing support among spatially extended kin in Northeast Thailand, 1984–94. Population Studies, 66, 1, 87–104.Google Scholar
Ritchie, J., Lewis, J., Nicolls, M. C. and Ormston, R. (eds) 2014. Qualitative Research Practice: A Guide for Social Science Students and Researchers. Sage, London.Google Scholar
Rock, D. and Wolff, S. 2002. Coming Home to Germany? The Integration of Ethnic Germans from Central and Eastern Europe in the Federal Republic Since 1945. Berghahn, Oxford.Google Scholar
Rogers, A. 2004. A European space for transnationalism? In Jackson, P., Crang, P. and Dwyer, C. (eds), Transnational Spaces. Routledge, Abingdon, UK, 164–82.Google Scholar
Sanders, R. 2016. Staying at Home: Identities, Memories and Social Networks of Kazakhstani Germans. Berghahn, Oxford.Google Scholar
Schröder-Butterfill, E. and Fithry, T. S. 2014. Care dependence in old age: preferences, practices and implications in two Indonesian communities. Ageing & Society, 34, 3, 361–87.Google Scholar
Schröder-Butterfill, E. and Kreager, P. 2005. Actual and de facto childlessness in old age: evidence and implications from East Java, Indonesia. Population and Development Review, 31, 1, 19–55.Google Scholar
Sienkiewicz, J., Sadovskaya, Y. and Amelina, A. 2015. The Kazakh–German social space: decreasing transnational ties and symbolic social protection. Population, Space and Place, 21, 3, 270–81.Google Scholar
Torres, S. 2012. International migration: patterns and implications for exclusion in old age. In Scharf, T. and Keating, N. (eds), From Exclusion to Inclusion in Old Age: A Global Challenge. Policy Press, Bristol, UK, 33–50.Google Scholar
Torres, S. and Karl, U. 2016. Ageing in Contexts of Migration. Routledge, Abingdon, UK.Google Scholar
Twigg, J. 2004. The body, gender, and age: feminist insights in social gerontology. Journal of Aging Studies, 18, 1, 59–73.Google Scholar
van der Geest, S., Mul, A. and Vermeulen, H. 2004. Linkages between migration and the care of frail older people: observations from Greece, Ghana and The Netherlands. Ageing & Society, 24, 3, 431–50.Google Scholar
Verdery, K. 1983. Transylvanian Villagers: Three Centuries of Political, Economic, and Ethnic Change. University of California Press, Berkeley.Google Scholar
Verdery, K. 1985. The unmaking of an ethnic collectivity: Transylvania's Germans. American Ethnologist, 12, 1, 62–83.Google Scholar
Vertovec, S. 2009. Transnationalism. Routledge, Abingdon, UK.Google Scholar
Vullnetari, J. and King, R. 2008. ‘Does your granny eat grass?’ On mass migration, care drain and the fate of older people in rural Albania. Global Networks, 8, 2, 139–71.Google Scholar
Vullnetari, J. and King, R. 2016. ‘Washing men's feet’: gender, care and migration in Albania during and after communism. Gender, Place and Culture, 23, 2, 198–215.Google Scholar
Wall, K. and Bolzman, C. 2014. Mapping the new plurality of transnational families. In Baldassar, L. and Merla, L. (eds), Transnational Families, Migration and Circulation of Care: Understanding Mobility and Absence in Family Life. Routledge, New York, 61–77.Google Scholar
Walsh, K. and Shutes, I. 2013. Care relationships, quality of care and migrant workers caring for older people. Ageing & Society, 33, 3, 393–420.Google Scholar
Warnes, A. 2010. Migration and age. In Dannefer, D. and Phillipson, C. (eds), The Sage Handbook of Social Gerontology. Sage, London, 389–404.Google Scholar
Weber, G., Nassehi, A., Weber-Schlenther, R., Sill, O., Kneer, G., Nollmann, G. and Saake, I. 2003. Die Emigration der Siebenbürger Sachsen. Westdeutscher Verlag, Wiesbaden, Germany.Google Scholar
Weber, G., Weber-Schlenther, R., Nassehi, A., Sill, O. and Kneer, G. 1996. Die Deportation von Siebenbürger Sachsen in die Sowjetunion 1945–1949. Böhlau, Köln, Germany.Google Scholar
Wessendorf, S. 2013. Second-generation Transnationalism and Roots Migration. Routledge, London.Google Scholar
World Bank 2016. Migration and remittances: recent developments and outlook. Migration and Development Brief 26, The World Bank/KNOMAD, Washington DC.Google Scholar
Zechner, M. 2008. Care of older persons in transnational settings. Journal of Aging Studies, 22, 1, 32–44.Google Scholar
Zontini, E. 2007. Continuity and change in transnational Italian families: the caring practices of second-generation women. Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies, 33, 7, 1103–19.Google Scholar
Zontini, E. 2012. Care arrangements of elderly transnational migrants: between family, community and the state. In Philip, G., Rogers, C. and Weller, S. (eds), Critical Approaches to Care: Understanding Caring Relations, Identities and Cultures. Routledge, London, 171–82.Google Scholar
Zontini, E. 2015. Growing old in a transnational social field: belonging, mobility and identity among Italian migrants. Ethnic and Racial Studies, 38, 2, 326–41.Google Scholar