International migration and family dynamics

As Southern European countries have transitioned from countries of emigration to immigration, scholars have become increasingly interested in the adaptation of immigrant youth, particularly their educational achievements. However, the role of gender in defining the educational experiences and outcomes of immigrants is still almost unknown.
Our paper addresses this issue by determining whether there is a significant gender gap in educational ambitions among immigrant offspring in these two countries and if so, by examining the possible mechanisms related to familism which may drive the formation of a gender gap. We contrast Italy and Spain in order to assess whether the gender patterns in educational ambitions based on our findings are generalizable across countries of similarly recent immigration histories.

Sweden is a universalistic welfare state with a system of social policies directed towards working parents and a strong emphasis on gender equality without any distinction by citizenship. However dramatic differences persist in the use of parental leave between immigrants and Swedish-born, even when the main socio-demographic characteristics are taken into account. In this study, we hypothesize that there are persisting differences in the uptake of parental leave between native and foreign-born women. We also hypothesize that a large part of these differences is connected to labor market situation. The results will be of importance not least as they will give insights to how different dimensions of integration may be related to each other. To address our research question we use data from the population registers which cover the entire population living in Sweden including new-born children and newly arrived immigrants.

So far, the academic literature about the role of the family for return migration, reintegration and re-emigration remains scarce. This paper aims to fill this gap by taking the example of Armenian return migrants and providing an analysis of the influence of family networks on the individual’s decision-making to return, on patterns of reintegration as well as on intentions to re-emigrate. This explorative study is based on 350 structured interviews with Armenian returnees. It takes the situation before departure, the experiences abroad and the return and post-return conditions into account. In doing so, this research acknowledges the dynamic nature of migration. Besides investigating the impact of the family on emigration decisions, return motivations and reintegration circumstances, this paper examines the significance of cross-border family networks for return migrants’ plans to re-emigrate.

The objective of this study is to analyze the factors that determine the birth of a first child after migrating, focusing particularly on the effects of the family situation at the time of arrival. Our hypothesis is that reproductive behavior following immigration is closely linked to whether a woman was already living as a couple and/or already had children before immigrating. The data for our analysis comes from the 2007 National Immigration Survey.
Results show, first of all, that the most important factor regarding the birth of a child after migration is the presence of children born before migrating. Secondly, marital status has an important effect on the likelihood of having this first child. Finally, the socio-demographic and economic characteristics of women when they arrive affect the likelihood of having their first child, according to each family situation.
Our principal finding is to show the great diversity of reproductive behavior in the immigrant population. The main implication is the foreseeable change in the contribution of the immigrant population to the fertility rate and the number of births as the new population settles in and the profile of immigrant women changes. This will result in a change in the contribution of the immigrant population regarding the deceleration of the aging process.

The complexity of family arrangements that constitute the return migration of Brazilians from Paraguay can be identified as an important element in maintaining the circularity between the two countries. The return plays an important role in migrants’ direction and in the daily interpersonal relationships between migrants and non-migrants, either in Brazil or Paraguay, forming a web of friendship and solidarity that sustain this intense cross-border transit of people, goods and information. Thus, in order to understand the phenomenon of migration as a social product, not only as a result of individual decisions and / or economic and political constraints, it is necessary to consider the key role played by social networks, mostly those related to families and households in the entire process. This paper describes the changes in volume and composition of family arrangements of Brazilian returnees from Paraguay in the five-year periods 1986/1991, 1995/2000 and 2005/2010 and raise some points for reflection and discussion on the participation of families in the migration process and circularity of these migrants. Information from the Brazilian Demographic Censuses of 1991, 2000 and 2010 will be used to do so, and to estimate the direct and indirect effects of international migration return to that country.

The annual figures on the fertility of Turkish and Moroccan women show that the sharp decline that took place up to the mid nineties was reduced or stagnated. In this paper we use cohort data by generation for the main population groups of non-western origin to show that the first generation only adjusted their fertility slowly to that of the native Dutch women. These women of the first generation show comparable (Turkish women) or even higher (Moroccan women) fertility rates than the women in their countries of origin and few signs of assimilation in (fertility) behaviour.
The second generation, on the other hand, are much closer to native women in this respect than to their mothers. Turkish and Moroccan women in their early thirties have almost the same number of children than native Dutch women that age. Adjustment to the native Dutch fertility pattern is caused by intergenerational differences, rather than by cultural assimilation of the first generation.

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Korean society has experienced a fast growing international cross-border marriage during the past decades. A large group of young women from Southeast Asian countries, who resides in Korea as workers and brides, also have received increasing attention from scholars and policy makers as marriage immigrants have emerged as an important social issue in contemporary Korean society. From the 1990s, a steady increase in the visibility of immigrant foreign spouses and immigrant laborers in Korea have an unsettling effect on the long-held image of a perceived homogeneity of Korean society. This study tries to analyze important phenomena current in the up-surging international marriages in South Korea. First, it examines the recent trend in the state of marriage-based immigrants and their families. Second, the study seeks to delineate their basic socio-cultural needs by analyzing data collected by a nationwide sample survey conducted in 2006 by three sociologists, Drs, Seol, D.H., Lee, H.K. and Cho, S.N. under the grant from the Ministry of Gender Equalities in South Korea. The study thus tries to capture actual living conditions of marriage-based immigrants and their families in Korea, focusing on those factors deemed to be a prerequisite for long term policy measures toward their successful social integration

Historically, Guatemalans have suffered high rates of poverty and malnutrition while nearly ten percent of their population resides abroad. This investigation uses multilevel modeling to quantify associations among Guatemalan fathers’ and mothers’ migration, remittances and left-behind children’s well-being. Based on national-level data collected in 2000, the investigation’s major findings include: for every month a father was away from the household the previous year, a left-behind child aged <3 was 26.3 and 26.6 percent more likely to be stunted or severely stunted, respectively, while a left-behind child aged <5 was 16.2 percent more likely to be underweight. In contrast, the receipt of remittance income did not have a countervailing beneficial association with measures of stunting, severe stunting, or being underweight. The importance of these findings relates to parental goals for enhancing the well-being of their children. Many parents use international economic migration as a means to improve the livelihoods of their children. However, as the results from this study show, these altruistic actions may have an ultimate and permanent negative impact on their children’s well-being if the timing of international economic migration coincides with the critical, first three years of a child’s life.