Transnational Parenthood and Migrant Subjective Well-Being in Italy

Transnational parents are migrant mothers and fathers who have at least one child left behind in the home country. Despite their non-negligible prevalence in many destination countries, scarcity of data on the topic has caused a lack of attention to this phenomenon in both policy and scholarship. In particular, little is known about how the interplay between migration and family relations at a distance affects the individual well-being of both migrant parents and their left-behind children, especially in a European context. This article evaluates the subjective well-being of migrant couples currently residing in Italy who have children left behind, compared with childless migrants and with migrant parents living with their children in Italy. Multivariate logistic regression applied to individual-level data from Istat's Survey on Social condition and integration of foreign citizens, 2011–2012, shows that transnational parents experienced lower levels of self-rated health compared with migrants with different family statuses and that the well-being loss associated with transnational parenthood is strongly gendered. Controlling for individual characteristics, socio-economic conditions, the presence of minor children, and migration background, our analysis demonstrates that men's subjective wellbeing did not vary based on their family status while transnational mothers experienced significantly lower well-being compared with childless migrant women. Our research suggests the need for adopting a transnational approach to migration starting from data gathering, for instance through the design and implementation of multi-sited and retrospective surveys.

International Migration and Aspirations among Young People: Who Desires to Migrate?

The dispatch of migrant workers from Indonesia is still quite high. Efforts to improve socio- economic status are still motivated by high rates of migration. Children left by migrant parents experience a greater emotional burden due to parenting issues. This study attempts to examine the aspirations of children and adolescents left by migrant parents based on data from the Child Health and Migrant Parents in South East Asia (CHAMPSEA) study. Analytical descriptive was used to describe children’s aspirations towards migrations on migrant and non-migrant households. This study found that children gave a bad perception when mothers had to migrate. Emotional closeness between children and mothers makes the children feel sad when being left by parents. However, once the children’s desire to migrate, especially in the ‘young adult’ group of children is precisely high. Having seen by sex, boys have a higher desire to migrate than women.

Minor Threats and the Biopolitics of Youth

In contemporary France, the problem of “immigrant youth”—French citizens, born to migrant parents, often from former French colonies—symbolizes the question of minority and national belonging. The development and disciplining of immigrants have, for several decades, formed the focus of sociological, anthropological, as well as political discourse, especially in the wake of the 2005 urban riots. Considering their case can help us to understand the history and the present-day predicament of “minority” in order to reimagine it beyond restrictive and racist frames.

Migration, remittances and child education in Ghana. Evidence from a longitudinal study

Evidence on the time-varying effects of migration, remittances and child education in African contexts remains scarce. This study employs panel data to examine educational outcomes – school enjoyment, and class ranking – of children whose parents migrated internally or internationally and who received in-kind remittances, monetary remittances, or both. The data were collected in 2013, 2014, and 2015 on a panel of school going children and youths aged from 12 to 21 in two urban areas with high out-migration rates in Ghana: Kumasi and Sunyani (N = 741). The panel includes children of both migrant and non-migrant parents. Results indicate dynamic patterns of sending remittances over years, with preferences converging towards sending both in-kind and monetary remittances by internal and international migrant parents. Overall, the education of children benefits when they receive both in-kind and monetary remittances. The positive effects are further enhanced when remittances are directly invested in child education. The absence of remittances has more negative effects on child education, especially for girls. This study gives a more nuanced understanding of the dynamic and intertwined associations between parental migration, remittances and the education of children in transnational families.

Parental aspirations, schools, and the limits of flexible citizenship: Examining elite return migrants’ schooling decisions

This article investigates how return migrant parents navigate primary and secondary education options in Bangalore, a city in southwest India, by addressing the following question: What factors do return migrant parents consider when making schooling decisions? Through analyzing interviews with return migrant parents from 37 different families, the author argues that parents ultimately want to give their children the skills necessary to pursue their educational and professional interests anywhere in the world. To do so, parents select the ‘best’ school for their child, taking into consideration its demographics, curriculum, and reputation. However, in the process of crafting their children’s transnational futures, parents encounter stumbling blocks as they prepare for the transition from high school to college.

Does integrated medical insurance system alleviate the difficulty of using cross-region health Care for the Migrant Parents in China-- evidence from the China migrants dynamic survey

Background Many internal migrants during the urbanization process in China are Migrant Parents, the aging group who move to urban areas to support their family involuntarily. They are more vulnerable economically and physically than the younger migrants. However, the fragmentation of rural and urban health insurance schemes divided by “hukou” household registration system limit migrant’s access to healthcare services in their resident location. Some counties have started to consolidate the Urban Resident Basic Medical Insurance (URBMI) and the New Rural Cooperative Medical Scheme (NRCMS) as one Integrated Medical Insurance Schemes (IMIS) from 2008. The consolidation aimed to reduce the disparity between different schemes and increase the health care utilization of migrants. Results Using the inpatient sample of migrant parents from China Migrants Dynamic Survey in 2015, we used Ordinary Least Squares (OLS) for regression models. We found that the migrant parents covered by the IMIS are more likely to choose inpatient services and seek medical treatment in the migrant destination. We further subdivide Non-IMISs into NCMSs and URBMIs in the regression to alleviate the doubt about endogenous. The results revealed that the migrant parents in IMIS use more local medical services than both of them in URBMI and NCMS. Conclusions The potential mechanisms of our results could be that IMIS alleviates the difficulty of seeking medical care in migrant destinations by improving the convenience of medical expense reimbursement and enhancing health insurance benefits.

Parental Migration and Psychological Well-Being of Children in Rural China

This paper empirically analyzes the impact of parental migration on the psychological well-being of children using ordered probit models based on a survey conducted among 1680 primary school students and their parents in Majiang County, Guizhou Province, China in 2020. The findings are as follows. First, compared with having no migrant parents, having two migrant parents significantly reduces the psychological well-being of children and having one migrant parent has no significant effect. Second, mediation analysis shows that parental migration reduces child depression by increasing household absolute and relative incomes. It also increases depression and reduces the subjective happiness of children by reducing parental discipline. However, it has no significant impact on parent–child interactions. Third, by dividing the sample by absolute and relative poverty, we find that the effect of parental migration on the psychological well-being of children varies with household economic conditions. Comparatively speaking, children from poor households are more affected by parental migration in terms of depression, whereas children from non-poor households are more affected by parental migration in terms of subjective happiness. This paper examines the transmission mechanism between parental migration and the psychological well-being of children, provides a perspective of household economic conditions for child psychology and offers useful insights for family education and government policymaking in this area.

Maternal Psychological Control and Rural Left-Behind Children's Anxiety: The Moderating Role of Externalizing Problem Behavior and Teacher Support

Based on the risk and protective factor framework and context-dependent theory, the present study investigated the association between maternal psychological control and anxiety among left-behind children in rural China as well as the moderating roles of externalizing problem behavior and teacher support in this association. A total of 149 children with two migrant parents, 306 children with only a migrant father, and 287 accompanied children aged 11–16 years (M = 13.85 years, SD = 0.50) in the rural areas of Shandong Province, Eastern China, participated in the study. Children reported their perceived levels of maternal psychological control, teacher support, externalizing problem behavior, and anxiety. The results provided evidence that a higher level of psychological control was associated with more anxiety symptoms in all three groups of children, and this association was stronger in children with two migrant parents than in accompanied children. Hierarchical regression analysis supported our hypotheses that the moderating effects of externalizing problem behavior and teacher support varied as a function of parents' migrant status, with externalizing problem behavior exacerbating the impact of psychological control on anxiety in accompanied children, and teacher support buffering the impact of psychological control on anxiety in children with a migrant father. These findings broaden our understanding of the factors and processes that contribute to anxiety problems in left-behind children in rural China.

Parental Migration and Children’s Exposure to Polyvictimization in Rural China

The present study aims to investigate (1) the difference in polyvictimization rate between children left behind and those living with non-migrant parents in rural China, and (2) the social processes through which the effects of parental migration are conveyed through children’s behaviors and interaction with the immediate external environment (e.g., family, school, and peers). The research hypotheses were tested by using a probability sample consisting of 1,681 middle school students in rural areas in Guizhou province (Mean age = 13.55, SD = 1.01; 50% of the participants were boys). Findings from multivariate logistic regression models and indirect effect analyses suggest that (1) overall, left-behind children are exposed to a higher level of polyvictimization than children living with both non-migrant parents in rural China and (2) whereas all left-behind children face similar challenges in school and family settings, each type of parental migration and caretaking arrangement entails unique protective or risk factors of polyvictimization. As one of the first studies to systematically investigate the rate and etiology of polyvictimization among children left behind in rural China, this study highlights the prominent role of parental migration in reproducing and reinforcing children’s differential exposure to polyvictimization among China’s rural families.