About 35 members of WG2 and some other interested participants gathered together in Berlin for a two-days meeting. The conference on transnational families and care, held on 17 October, gathered international scholars, practitioners, policy-makers and representatives from non-governmental organizations to discuss current issues related to intergenerational care across borders. It was co-hosted by TraFaDy, the German Centre for Integration and Migration Research (DeZIM) and the Association of German Family Organisations (AGF).
Guided through three panels – each including three presentations –, an interesting opening talk and a very nice and inspiring closing talk, all participants present gained a lot of new insights on different topics. Intergenterational care in times of crisis was at center and many perspectives und sub-topics were brought in, such as well-being and generational challenges, and many more. During the presentations you could have heard a pin drop. But the breaks were used to share experiences, answer more in-depth questions, exchange ideas about what intergenerational care is and discuss current issues related to intergenerational care across borders.
The conference was followed by an additional evening event, that was held in German and focused on the challenges of transnational families regarding care responsibilites within the family against the abckground of German laws. It was organised by TraFaDy members David Schiefer (DeZIM) and Sven Iversen (Association of German Family Organisations).
On the second day, the members of WG 2 (The Perspectives of Children and Youth) met to discuss their ongoing research and plan future work. The three subgroups presented their updates:
- Subgroup 1 “Psycho-social support in TNF” focuses on advancing research and policy insights into the psychosocial dynamics of children in transnational families, particularly those dealing with migration, relocation, or parental separation. Their objectives include conducting a literature review on psychosocial services and mapping evidence-based interventions across countries. Upcoming activities include writing a scoping review paper, organizing webinars, and proposing a special issue in the Journal of Comparative Social Work.
- The work of Subgroup 2 “Education” involves reviewing policy documents and drafting papers on the challenges and opportunities within different educational systems, with publication projects planned for the coming months.
- Subgroup 3 “Children’s perspectives in TNF” emphasizes children’s perspectives in transnational families, a viewpoint often overlooked in family studies, with the goal of incorporating these voices more effectively into research and policy. Upcoming publications will focus on cultural diversity and education.
After the presentations, participants worked in small groups to discuss ongoing efforts to plan the next steps.
The productive Berlin meeting provided a solid foundation for future work, advancing the group’s mission to support children and youth in transnational families across Europe.
Background
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.
Program overview 17-18 October 2024:
- Thursday, 17 October 2024, 09:30h – 17:00h : Conference on intergenerational care in transnational families
- Thursday, 17 October 2024, 18:00h – 20:00h: German speaking evening event on intergenerational care in transnational families focussing on the German situation.
- Friday, 18 October 2024: TraFaDy Working Group 2 meeting