The project’s general objective is to investigate the situation of the elderly whose children have emigrated to work abroad and of the manner in which intergenerational solidarity operates in these situations, in relation to the former’s support and care needs.
The project’s specific objectives are:
To familiarise ourselves with the perspectives and the main results of previous research regarding intergenerational solidarity in a transnational context, conducted in various countries.
To investigate the peculiarities of intergenerational solidarity in the case of the elderly whose children have emigrated in order to work abroad.
To investigate in-depth the manner in which the absence of spatial proximity between parents and children has reconfigured intergenerational solidarity.
To analyse long-term care policies and to formulate possible public policies in order to respond to the needs of the elderly people whose children have emigrated.
To disseminate the Romanian features of intergenerational solidarity in the context of work-related migration.
The results of this project will contribute to the development of models which conceptualise intergenerational solidarity in a transnational context. By this project we intend to identify the manner in which intergenerational support received by the elderly people left at home is reconfigured, in relation to their needs, and to identify the strategies to which they resort in order to respond to particular needs of support and care, needs to which their children cannot respond directly. We will study how this transfer of caretaking takes place within the communities in which most of the members who were able to work have migrated abroad and where no services for taking care of the elderly people exist. We will also have in view possible solutions for responding to the needs of the older people who remained at home and for easing the migrants’ tasks. We will thus add a new dimension to the results of the previous results in the domain of intergenerational relations in a transnational context. Beyond the theoretical contribution, the results of the present project target a social impact, by the attention given to the formulation of recommendations for public policies that would facilitate the development of social services that are appropriate for elderly people.
Results of our research will be disseminated in the academic world, through sending out studies for publication and participating in international and national conferences and workshops. The report centered on public policies oriented towards satisfying the elderly people’s needs will be addressed to a larger audience.
