Competing obligations and the maintenance of physical co-presence: the impact of migration and structural constraints on post-accession Polish families in the UK

Abstract

The focus of this article is on individual case studies selected for the purpose of illuminating the experiences of post-accession Polish migrant ‘family lives’ in the United Kingdom (UK). These case studies demonstrate what Morgan (1996) calls the movement of individuals through households and family relationships, simultaneous with the examination of the enlargement of the spaces in which family lives are conducted as a consequence of movement across the ‘open borders’ between the UK and Poland (Ryan, 2010). The focus is on how the interviewees’ articulated what they presented to us as the impact of particular structural constraints (in terms of education, pensions, childcare and employment) on their future plans to settle in the UK or return to Poland. However, the main focus of the article is the relationship between these structural constraints and the tensions associated with fulfilling competing familial obligations in the UK and in Poland.