Lives Lived in “Someone Else's Hands”: Precarity and Profit-making of Migrants and Left-behind Children in the Philippines

2019 ◽  
Vol 7 (1) ◽  
pp. 135-158
Author(s):  
Cheryll Alipio
Keyword(s):  
Economic System ◽  
Cultural Values ◽  
Migrant Workers ◽  
Well Being ◽  
The Philippines ◽  
News Reports ◽  
Left Behind ◽  
The Third ◽  
Ethnographic Fieldwork ◽  
Migrant Families

AbstractIn the labour brokerage state of systematic recruitment and export for the maximisation of labour, development, and profit, the Philippines continues to simultaneously fashion migrant workers as temporary, yet heroic and sacrificial. As the largest migrant-sending country in Southeast Asia and the third largest remittance recipient in Asia, the Philippines’ discourse of migrants as modern-day heroes and martyrs reveals the interplay of nationalist myths and cultural values, alongside the neoliberal favouring of finance and flexible labour, to craft filial migrants and celebrate mobile, capitalist subjects over migrants’ welfare and well-being. The article explores the contemporaneous institutionalisation of migrant labour and migrants’ institutionalised uncertainty lived every day to investigate how this profound precariousness in the Philippines is perpetuated historically to shape the resilience and realities of migrants and their left-behind children today. Drawing from news reports and films on migrant lives and ethnographic fieldwork in the Philippines, this article considers how the formation and deployment of overseas Filipino workers (OFWs) turns from a focus on sustaining the nation to supporting migrant families and developing translocal communities. Through this examination, the paper seeks to uncover who profits and is indebted from the precarity created and sustained by the larger economic system built on transnational labour migration.

Social support, well-being and involvement of fathers in transnational families in the Philippines

2020 ◽  
Vol 29 (4) ◽  
pp. 492-510
Author(s):  
Melissa Garabiles
Keyword(s):  
Social Support ◽  
Peer Support ◽  
Spousal Support ◽  
Paternal Involvement ◽  
Transnational Migration ◽  
Well Being ◽  
The Philippines ◽  
Transnational Families ◽  
Left Behind

This study investigated left-behind Filipino fathers and their involvement as child caregivers. It hypothesized that social support and well-being predict paternal involvement, with well-being as the mediator. Results showed that familial and peer support predicted involvement, with well-being as mediator. Spousal support did not predict involvement or well-being. Findings highlight the importance of familial and peer support to left-behind fathers. Interactions between significant predictors of involvement present novel pathways to childcare. The non-significant role of spousal support is discussed in the context of transnational migration. Several interventions involving families and peers are suggested.

Money, Maturity, and Migrant Aspirations

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Cheryll Alipio
Keyword(s):  
Young People ◽  
Moral Values ◽  
The Philippines ◽  
The State ◽  
Moral Evaluation ◽  
Financial Responsibility ◽  
Left Behind ◽  
Ethnographic Fieldwork ◽  
Migrant Labour ◽  
At Home

Since the state institutionalization of migrant labour began in the Philippines, countless children have been ‘left behind’ bereft of one, or even both, parents. Consequently, the moral evaluation of familial and financial responsibility has intensified. Drawing upon ethnographic fieldwork in the various institutions involved in the quotidian lives of young people, this chapter uses Cheryl Mattingly’s (2013) notion of the ‘moral laboratory’ at home and in school to explore lived engagements with money, morality, and mobility. In the reimagining and pursuit of future possibilities beyond a life of poverty and unemployment, this chapter contends that young people’s experimentation with money as a form of mobile or migrant aspiration reflects their strategic moral values and maturation.

scholarly journals Penguatan Komunikasi Interpersonal Keluarga Migran di Kota Medan

2019 ◽  
Vol 2 (2) ◽  
pp. 181-187
Author(s):  
Syahrul Abidin
Keyword(s):  
Interpersonal Communication ◽  
Migrant Workers ◽  
Clear Relationship ◽  
Verbal Reinforcement ◽  
Good Communication ◽  
Left Behind ◽  
Migrant Families ◽  
Children And Parents ◽  
The Family ◽  
Broken Home

Economic needs and demands for welfare are the drivers in migrating abroad as migrant workers which can often cause problems in the family. So it is necessary to build a good communication. Therefore it is important to do a strengthening of interpersonal communication within the family in order to minimize household breakage (broken home). DeVito believes that interpersonal communication is communication that occurs between two people who already have a clear relationship, including family. This writing aims to see the strengthening of the interpersonal communication of migrant families of Indonesian Workers left behind in building harmony in the household. Strengthening is given in the form of verbal reinforcement by showing attitudes, decision responses and agreements in the household between children and parents. The results of this paper indicate that the strengthening of interpersonal communication carried out by migrant families is to increase attention, encourage children's education, lead to divergent ways of thinking or look for their own initiatives 

scholarly journals Contingent Relations: Migrant Wellbeing and Economic Development in Rural Manitoba

2021 ◽  
Vol 6 ◽  
Author(s):  
Catherine Bryan
Keyword(s):  
Economic Development ◽  
Migrant Workers ◽  
Capital Accumulation ◽  
Foreign Worker ◽  
Well Being ◽  
The Philippines ◽  
Labour Mobility ◽  
Foreign Labour ◽  
Transnational Family ◽  
Permanent Residency

Drawing on ethnographic fieldwork conducted in rural Manitoba and the Philippines, this paper uses the example of the small town of Douglas, which since 2009 has been home to a small Filipino community, as a tenuous counter-point to the accounts of exclusion that dominate the scholarship on Temporary Foreign Labour in Canada. This paper draws on ethnographic research conducted in Manitoba with the region’s newest immigrants—those recruited to ensure the viability of the new, diversified rural regional economy, and more specifically, the tourism and hospitality sector, established in the 1970s. In 2009, unable to meet its labour needs regionally, a local hotel began recruiting temporary foreign labour. By 2014, the Hotel had recruited 71 workers from the Philippines, most of whom arrived through Canada’s Temporary Foreign Worker Program; others having arrived through the province’s immigration scheme, the Manitoba Provincial Nominee Program (MPNP). A reflection of the ubiquity of globalized Filipino migration, the well-being of these workers had long been informed by economic development in the Philippines and the centrality of international labour mobility to that state project. What emerges from the data is a simultaneous acceptance and contestation of the conditions of transnational family life, and moreover—reflecting the focus of this special issue—the extent to which migrant well-being shifts in accordance to labour mobility regimes responsive to development. Migrant workers and their families are implicated in these connected, yet differently motivated, state projects. And while particular narratives concerning their contributions come to be valorized and even celebrated, their mental, physical, affective, and relational well-being is often over-looked by those who benefit from their labour and mobility. Of equal importance is the provincial state’s participation in this process through the provision of permanent residency to existing and in-coming migrants. While this benefits individual families, it does not inherently challenge the logics of neoliberalism; rather, drawing on its nuances, it create new possibilities for capital accumulation and exploitation, while offering some protection for select families who are willing and able to abide by the terms established by their employer and the Manitoba state.

Migration and absent fathers: Impacts on the mental health of left-behind family members in Thailand

2019 ◽  
Vol 28 (3) ◽  
pp. 271-299
Author(s):  
Benjamas Penboon ◽  
Aree Jampaklay ◽  
Patama Vapattanawong ◽  
Zachary Zimmer
Keyword(s):  
Mental Health ◽  
Mental Health Problems ◽  
Economic Status ◽  
Well Being ◽  
Absent Fathers ◽  
Left Behind ◽  
Migrant Families ◽  
Strengths And Difficulties ◽  
Household Economic Status ◽  
Self Reporting Questionnaire

This paper examines whether children and main caregivers of overseas migrant fathers have fewer or more mental health symptoms compared to those of non-migrant fathers. The sample includes 997 households from the 2008 Child Health and Migrant Parents in South-East Asia project. The mental health measurements are the Strengths and Difficulties Questionnaire and the Self-Reporting Questionnaire. Compared to children of non-migrant fathers, those of migrant fathers are more likely to demonstrate conduct problems and hyperactivity/inattention. Factors which appear to impact a caregiver's mental health include the physical health status of children, caregiver's education level and household economic status. To reduce the risk of mental health problems on left-behind children, our findings imply the importance of encouraging and educating left-behind families to monitor the children's psychological well-being, especially those in father-migrant families.

Young Men in the Philippines

2013 ◽  
Vol 646 (1) ◽  
pp. 214-232 ◽  
Author(s):  
Cheryll Alipio
Keyword(s):  
Cultural Values ◽  
Transition To Adulthood ◽  
Young Male ◽  
The Philippines ◽  
Nongovernmental Organization ◽  
Training Center ◽  
Educational Training ◽  
Ethnographic Fieldwork ◽  
Cultural Expectations ◽  
Metro Manila

Young adults in the Philippines face a demographic and economic situation that, when coupled with cultural expectations, compels many to consider entry into the global labor force as part and parcel of their obligation to improve their family’s livelihood. Drawing on ethnographic fieldwork conducted between 2006 and 2007 in Metro Manila and the province of Laguna, this study examines the partnership of an educational training center and a nongovernmental organization to provide services to young Filipinos transitioning to adulthood. Utilizing a cognitive map exercise given at an orientation seminar for young male migrants, the study charts their financial and family goals and traces not only the source of the intergenerational transfers of material and social assistance back to a set of cultural values but also reveals how their gendered behaviors and practices can effectively delay other markers of the transition to adulthood, such as courtship, marriage, and parenthood.

scholarly journals The Impact of Childhood Left-Behind Experience on the Mental Health of Late Adolescents: Evidence from Chinese College Freshmen

2021 ◽  
Vol 18 (5) ◽  
pp. 2778
Author(s):  
Huajun Wu ◽  
Zhiyong Cai ◽  
Qing Yan ◽  
Yi Yu ◽  
Ning Neil Yu
Keyword(s):  
Mental Health ◽  
Migrant Workers ◽  
Migrant Worker ◽  
Well Being ◽  
Late Adolescents ◽  
Long Term Effects ◽  
Left Behind ◽  
Wide Range ◽  
Single Child ◽  
The Impact

A paucity of public service afforded to migrant workers often begets a wide range of social problems. In China, hundreds of millions of migrant worker parents have to leave children behind in their hometowns. This paper investigated the long-term effects of the childhood experience of being left behind on the mental well-being of late adolescents. Mandatory university personality inventory (UPI) surveys (involving psychosomatic problems such as anxiety, depression, and stress) were conducted at a university in Jiangsu, China, during 2014–2017. The study sample consisted of 15,804 first-year college students aged between 15 and 28 years. The PSM method and the OLS regression model were employed. Controlling for the confounding factors (gender, age, single-child status, hometown location, ethnicity, and economic status), our empirical investigation demonstrated that childhood left-behind experience significantly worsened the mental health of the study sample, increasing the measure of mental ill-being by 0.661 standard deviations (p < 0.01). Moreover, the effects were consistently significant in subsamples divided by gender, single-child status, and hometown location; and the effects were greater for females, single-child students, and urban residents.

scholarly journals Parental migration and psychological well-being of left-behind adolescents in Western Nepal

PLoS ONE ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 16 (1) ◽  
pp. e0245873
Author(s):  
Madhu Kharel ◽  
Shibanuma Akira ◽  
Junko Kiriya ◽  
Ken Ing Cherng Ong ◽  
Masamine Jimba
Keyword(s):  
International Migration ◽  
Migrant Workers ◽  
Well Being ◽  
Cross Sectional Study ◽  
Adaptation Mechanism ◽  
Cross Sectional ◽  
Psychological Well Being ◽  
Rural Districts ◽  
Left Behind ◽  
Adolescence Period

Introduction International migration is increasing rapidly around the world mostly to obtain a job. International migrant workers usually leave their children back in their country of origin, and among family members, adolescents may experience greater psychological distress from parental separation. However, limited evidence is available on the relationship between parental international migration and psychological well-being of left-behind adolescents. Nepal has a relatively higher and increasing number of international migrants, and this study was conducted to examine the association between parental international migration and the psychological well-being of left-behind adolescents in Nepal. Methods A school-based cross-sectional study was conducted among 626 adolescents in two districts of Western Nepal, where international migration is common. Adolescents were recruited through random sampling. Pre-tested “Strengths and Difficulties Questionnaire” was used to measure their psychological well-being and simple and multiple linear regression were used to examine the association between parental international migration and the psychological well-being of left-behind adolescents. Results Adolescents with none of the parents living abroad were more likely to have higher total difficulties score compared to those with one of the parents living abroad (B: 1.02; 95% CI: 0.18, 1.86; p = 0.017). Adolescents with the following factors were more likely to have higher total difficulties score in comparison to their counterparts: adolescents in their late adolescence period, female adolescents, adolescents from ethnicities other than Brahmin and adolescents studying in private schools. Conclusion In rural districts of Nepal, where international migration is common, adolescents living with the parents were more likely to have poorer psychological well-being compared to those with one of the parents living abroad. Adolescents’ adaptation mechanism for the absence of parents for international migration might be explored in the future studies.

Intergenerational Relationships and Psychological Well-Being of Chinese Older Adults With Migrant Children: Does Internal or International Migration Make a Difference?

2016 ◽  
Vol 39 (3) ◽  
pp. 622-643 ◽  
Author(s):  
Man Guo ◽  
Jinyu Liu ◽  
Ling Xu ◽  
Weiyu Mao ◽  
Iris Chi
Keyword(s):  
Older Adults ◽  
Intergenerational Relationships ◽  
Well Being ◽  
Coping Resources ◽  
Migrant Children ◽  
Chinese Older Adults ◽  
Internal Migrant ◽  
Left Behind ◽  
Migrant Families ◽  
Beijing China

Relying on a purposive sample of 550 Chinese older adults in Beijing, China, this study examined the potential influence of children’s out-migration, internally or internationally, on intergenerational relationships and parental well-being. By comparing older adults in nonmigrant, internal migrant, transnational, and hybrid (have both migrant and nonmigrant children) families, we found that children’s out-migration only compromised intergenerational contact and instrumental support, but not monetary or emotional support. Older adults of different family types had similar levels of depression and life satisfaction. Those in internal migrant families were most likely to report financial worries, and those in transnational families were most likely to worry about lack of care. The influence of children’s out-migration was further confounded by parents’ coping resources. The findings suggest that the vulnerability of the “left-behind” elderly might have been exaggerated. Future studies shall distinguish different types of migration and the diversity among older adults with migrant children.

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