Parental Wellbeing in Transnational Families between Africa and Europe: Evidence from Cross-Country Micro Data

Research on the wellbeing of migrant populations generally focuses on factors related to the receiving country context. At the same time, migrants are increasingly living in transnational families with some of their nuclear family members living in the country of origin. Qualitative transnational migration studies point out that living apart can have wellbeing consequences for migrant parents. This paper examines the wellbeing of parents in transnational child raising arrangements where at least one of their children has remained in the origin country. We investigate the impact of such family arrangements on migrants’ wellbeing using cross-country data on 900 African migrants (Ghanaians, Angolans, and Nigerians) in three European countries (The Netherlands, Portugal, and Ireland, respectively). Migrant parents in transnational families are compared with a control group of migrant parents who live with all of their children in the receiving country. Preliminary descriptive results indicate that parents in a transnational child raising arrangements are worse off in their wellbeing compared to parents who live with their children. We use regression analysis to examine whether these results remain after controlling for individual migrant, family, as well as sending and receiving country contextual characteristics.