17-18 October 2024, Berlin (GER): Conference on intergenerational care in transnational families and meeting of Working Group 2

Mutual intergenerational support and care is a central feature of family relationships in nearly all regions around the globe. It refers to relationships between parents and their minor children, to adults and their aging parents but also to care provided by grandparents and other kin. Ample research documents that when individuals migrate across borders, intergenerational care relations are being continued but at the same time meeting care obligations becomes more challenging and are also re-negotiated.
Intergenerational care in families is embedded in different social and institutional contexts at the local and national level which determine the economic resources and mobilities of families, provide a cultural-normative frame for intergenerational care and solidarity and place different emphasis on the family and the state as the main providers of care. Intergenerational care, in this regard, undergoes constant changes as consequence of local, national and global developments. Increasing migration is one of such developments not only challenging traditional ‘localized’ perceptions of family but also existing frameworks of state support for intergenerational care which has been traditionally bounded to individuals living within national borders.
Given the increasing societal relevance of cross-border family relations, knowledge on challenges and experiences associated with transnational intergenerational care is required to develop sustainable responses and solutions to changing family structures. While previous research has highlighted very well the uniqueness of cross-border family relationships as compared to within-country families, there is still a need to better understand the diversity within transnational families. This particularly refers to group- and context-specific characteristics and mechanisms underlying the way intergenerational care across borders is performed and experienced in different countries and in comparison with intra-national local and long-distance family relations.
This one-day conference will have about 30-50 participants and aims to bring together international scholars, practitioners, policy-makers and representatives from non-governmental organizations to discuss current issues related to intergenerational care across borders.