African transnational families: Cross‐country and gendered comparisons

Kim Caarls,Elisabeth K. Kraus,Valentina Mazzucato,Karlijn Haagsman

doi:10.1002/psp.2162

Abstract

AbstractStudies indicated differences between transnational family life for migrant mothers and fathers and that the effects on their “left‐behind” children differ according to who migrates. Yet little is known about why these differences exist. This paper aims to fill this gap by comparing transnational and nontransnational African families with parents living in Europe to understand their different family structures. We analyse three datasets with information on migrants from five African origin countries in eight European countries. Our analyses reveal important differences between transnational and nontransnational families and between transnational mothers and fathers. Transnational mothers are more often single, have children from multiple relationships, and start family life earlier than transnational fathers and nontransnational parents. This corresponds closely to what family sociologists have found make “fragile families” among nonmigrants. Our work thus indicates that policies aiming to improve migrants' lives need to consider the disadvantages that particularly migrant women experience in maintaining their family life.

Highlights

Transnational families, in which children live in a country of origin and one or both parents migrate to another country, are common (UNICEF, 2006)
Doing a cross‐country comparison allows us to address this gap by investigating whether characteristics of transnational parents are similar for different origin countries and whether we find common patterns in their family trajectories
Transnational fathers are more highly educated compared with the mothers among the Congolese, Ghanaians, and Nigerians, Angolan mothers have on average a higher educational level than the fathers

Summary

Introduction

Transnational families, in which children live in a country of origin and one or both parents migrate to another country, are common (UNICEF, 2006). Since the end of the 1990s, scholars have investigated this type of family, resulting in a burgeoning literature on various aspects of transnational family life These studies find that mothers and their children who “stay behind” suffer emotionally and physically when mothers migrate and are forced by circumstance to live for long periods of time away from their children (Bernhard, Landolt, & Goldring, 2009; Boccagni, 2012; Dreby, 2006; Parreñas, 2001, 2005). By 2013, approximately 737,217 Ghanaians, 1,117,901 Nigerians, 518,711 Angolans, 1,306,026 Congolese, and 540,363 Senegalese had migrated to search for better opportunities abroad (World Bank, 2016) These figures do not include undocumented migrants, they indicate that the phenomenon of migration from our study countries is large. During the 1980s, Senegal experienced economic difficulties, substantially increasing migration from Senegal to Europe, and diversifying European destinations (Sakho, Beauchemin, Schoumaker, & Flahaux, 2013)

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