Transnational Families and the Well-Being of Children: Conceptual and Methodological Challenges

Abstract

Family research and scholarship on immigrant families has evolved in the past decade to include factors such as community context, family environment, and individual attitudes to explain immigrant family formation and functioning (see Glick, 2010, for a review). Nevertheless, methodologically and theoretically, families are still predominantly conceived of as nuclear, living together, and bounded by the nation state. Family studies emphasize geographical proximity as a prerequisite for interaction and exchange within families, thereby eliding family ties that cross national borders. As a result, family practices across borders are ignored or assumed to be unfeasible (Baldassar & Baldock, 1999; Mazzucato & Schans, 2008) and transnational families—conceived of as families with members living in different nation states—have been treated as a temporary phenomenon, with family reunification in the host society as the preferred outcome for all family members (Landolt & Da, 2005). In contrast, research from the past decade in the areas of migration and development has demonstrated that individuals' migration-related choices are related to their family members' needs and that migration affects migrants' origin countries. This area of research, however, largely focuses on the economic effects of remittances on households as a whole and rarely analyzes the differential impact of remittances on individual family members (Adams & Page, 2005; Ratha, 2003). Moreover, studies from this field do not consider noneconomic effects such as the impact of migration on the well-being of family members who live apart. In this special section, we broaden analyses in the fields of both family and migration studies by examining the effects that migration has on the well-being (defined as psychological, educational, and health outcomes) of children who are left in the country of origin. Here, we use the word children to emphasize the relationship between a young person and his or her parent or caregiver; however, the contributions to this special section examine children and youths up to 18 years of age. Transnational family arrangements are prevalent worldwide because of stringent migration policies in migrant receiving countries that make it difficult for families to migrate together, families' attempts to escape violent conflict or persecution, or family members' preferences, especially in societies where child fostering is a common practice, such as in many places in Africa. The exact prevalence of transnational family arrangements is unknown, however, because of a scarcity of quantitative evidence caused by the lack of academic and policy attention to this phenomenon. Reports by nongovernmental organizations and international organizations such as Save the Children and UNICEF indicate that approximately 25% of children in selected migrant-sending countries have at least one parent abroad. This estimate appears sufficiently large to justify further research on transnational families and the well-being of children. As a consequence, scholars have begun to turn their attention toward transnational families, though most of the scholarship thus far is in the form of qualitative case studies. This introduction begins with an overview of current scholarship on transnational families from different disciplinary backgrounds and identifies important contributions to the literature and gaps in our knowledge. In the next section, we highlight three conceptual and methodological challenges and discuss how the articles in this special section advance our understanding of transnational families and the well-being of children. We conclude by discussing important elements of an agenda for future research on transnational families in general and their impact on child well-being in particular.