Female Migrants Caring for their Elderly Parents: An Understudied Case?
Caring for vulnerable kin, children and elderly parents plays an important role in transnational families. As addressed in the global care circulation concept, female migrants from the Global South taking care of children and elderly members of wealthy families solve a public problem privately. We slightly change the focus and take a look at how migrants’ elderly parents are cared for, a topic which has received little attention so far, and reflects on aspects in the global care circulation concept.
In everyday life, the complex transnational family networks come into play particularly in key life course moments, such as marriage, birth, aging or illness (Fortin and Le Gall 2007; Waldis and Byron 2006). Taking care of one another is the social cement between family members. Care is given by love and by a sense of reciprocity, it relates to a form of “moral contract” (Baldassar 2008), driven by a feeling of obligation (Attias-Donfut and Gallou 2006). Giving care in transnational families takes manifold forms: traveling to be physically beside relatives, sending money, calling often by phone or by video. The performance of these material, human and emotional exchanges differs, among other criteria, according to socio-economic and legal status as well as gender.
Transnational Family Networks and Global Care Circulation
Besides the key life course moments, caring for vulnerable kin, children and elderly parents, also plays a role in transnational families. As addressed in the global care circulation concept (Hochschild 2002, Lutz 2018), the globalization of domestic workers’ migration who leave their own kids to other family members and take care of children and elderly members of wealthy families in western countries, is “a private solution to a public problem” (Hochschild 2002: 36). We slightly change the focus and take a look at how migrants’ elderly parents are cared for, which is much less studied than transnational or global motherhood, and reflect on aspects in the global care circulation concept that have received little attention so far. Caring for migrants’ elderly parents becomes an issue not only from a transmigrant perspective or with the intensification of people’s mobility over generations but also because of the increasing aging of the population, both in the Global North and South. Migrants living far from their elderly parents develop strategies and engage in different types of actions to take care of them (Deneva 2012). Just as in the global care debate, when we deal with the question of elderly care, we must refer to the gender regime within family relationships and organization as well as the socio-economic status of the migrants, but also, as we argue, for transcontinental families, the legal status of the caring migrant.
According to recent studies, mainly female migrants take care of their parents in the country of origin. The responsibilities are still mainly distributed along gender lines as described in the theory of social reproduction (Kofman 2012). Due to the increasing economic success of highly skilled female migrants we are witnessing greater gender equality in providing financial support to parents. Additionally, skilled migrants with a comfortable socio-economic position have the financial and often legal capacities (legal migration and multiple citizenship) to travel and physically be with their parent more often (Wilding and Baldassar 2014). Nonetheless, the equal share does not seem to include care work. De Silva’s (2018) study on Sri Lankan-Australian transnational families shows how the emotional and affective support is given by female migrants to their parents (daily phone and video contact, compared to twice a month for males), they further support them financially or travel forth and back. Meanwhile male migrants maintain the traditional role of breadwinner.
Female Migrants and Elderly Care
Within Europe, migrants from countries of the Global South, even if they acquired citizenship, have to deal with restrictive migration admission regimes. Family reunification constitutes a considerable share of residence permits besides work or studies. Family reunification includes spouses, children, and other kin. The legal regime in Europe admits elderly parents of intercontinental transmigrants only in very limited cases. This admission regime prevents migrants from having parents near and taking care of them more easily. This regime affects unskilled and skilled women in terms of time and financial resources. Women are not only expected to take the lead in the elderly care, but also mostly carry out the care work.
The topic of migrants caring for their elderly parents in transnational family networks adds some complexity to the care circulation concept. Global care focuses on the transnational circulation of persons, services and social bonds and the question of global social inequalities is partially neglected (Lutz 2018: 44 ff.). In the case of highly skilled female migrants caring for their parents, new aspects of gender and social inequalities appear in global care circulation. Economically successful female migrants with a high legal status (or with a naturalized/bi-national status) act similarly to economically successful women of the Global North regarding their career ambitions and social success. Faced with social expectations regarding the responsibility for family care, they engage in care circulation in two specific ways. They delegate the caring jobs in their country of residence to female migrants from the Global South and they also delegate the care for their parents in the country of origin to other less qualified women, often contributing to a rural-urban migration or even international migration.
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