Intergenerational Relationships in Migrant Families. Theoretical and Methodological Issues

Abstract

Migration has become a family based project, whether it involves the migration of the whole family, the formation of family post-migration or the financial support of family in the country of origin. The growing tendency of migrants to settle permanently rather than to practice circular migrations raises new challenges, not only for migration policy but also for integration patterns and for family policy and practices. We are convinced that a generational approach is one of the most inspiring ways to explore such questions.Migration experiences are indeed very different from one generation to another and they often exacerbate generational differences. Therefore it is necessary to develop studies to identify changes from one generation to the other within migrant families and to examine the impact of migration on the relationships between generations. This chapter is focused on theoretical and methodological issues through the presentation of studies investigating these generational changes, and combining several methods, using quantitative, qualitative and comparative data. We will first summarize some of the main results relating to the topic, on the basis of the literature and on studies that we have carried out at a national and cross-national level.The family is increasingly understood as pivotal to migration, forming the central consideration in the majority of decisions to relocate and proving fundamental to shaping transitions to settlement

“My parents did everything for us but nothing with us”: Parenting and mothering in Vietnamese immigrant families in the Czech Republic

“…Current research shows that intergenerational parent-child relations in immigrant families are very complex and have several domains. Attias-Donfut and Cook (2017) reviewed the current scholarship covering five key topics: the contraction of nuclear family relations; the central positions taken by the children; the changes in gender relations; the transmission of patterns of behavior; and intergenerational social mobility. Many empirical studies show how migration conditions parenthood and vice versa.…”

“…However, as Cook and Waite (2016) argue, in the literature, "there has been too much emphasis on the divisions between "'traditional' parents and 'modern' children at the expense of examining the ways in which both generations change and adapt" Waite, 2016: 1389). Post-migratory intergenerational relationships are far more complex than those simple divisions, and the perception and experience of migration vary from one generation to another, as previous research has demonstrated (Attias-Donfut and Cook, 2017;Foner and Dreby, 2011).…”