Transnational caregiving between Australia, Italy and El Salvador: the impact of institutions on the capability to care at a distance
(2011) Gender and well being: the role of institutions — ISBN: [978-1-4094-0705-8], published
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- Abstract
- This paper applies the capabilities approach to examine transnational family practices and the exchange of care between adult migrant children and their ageing parents living at a distance. An aim of the paper is to raise awareness about the importance of transnational caregiving to migrant well-being. Using qualitative oral history data, we highlight the role of the state in facilitating caregiving across distance between the countries where the parents are living, in this case El Salvador and Italy, and the country where the children reside, in this case Australia. We define the ability to practice transnational caregiving as a ‘capability’ that is influenced by a further set of ‘capabilities’ including mobility, social relations, time-allocation, education and knowledge, paid work and communication. Access to, and use of, these capabilities is strongly influenced by both home and host country formal institutional and informal policies. The family, considered here as a social institution, plays a key role in mediating access, of both migrants and parents, to transnational caregiving-related capabilities.
- Affiliations
Monash University Monash University Prato Centre
Citations
Merla, L., & Baldassar, L. (2011). Transnational caregiving between Australia, Italy and El Salvador: the impact of institutions on the capability to care at a distance. In E. Addis, P. de Villota, , F. Degavre & J. Eriksen (ed.), Gender and well being: the role of institutions. Ashgate. https://hdl.handle.net/2078.5/149361