Transnational Families in Romania. Facing New Opportunities and Risks of Intergenerational Solidarity

Recent demographic changes such as ageing, low-fertility and not the least, out-migration, characteristic to Eastern European countries, including Romania, bring into discussion the vivid question of the future of the intergenerational solidarity. In the context of the increasing geographical mobility of young people in search for better paid jobs, the existing need for personal assistance amongst elderly and an undeveloped formal care system, Romania faces new understudied dynamics of intergenerational support. Contrary to certain perspectives, which consider spatial proximity between adult children and their elder parents the indisputable enabling factor for intergenerational support transfers (Rossi & Rossi, 1990), emerging literature in the field of transnational families highlights that such kinship relations continue to exist even across borders (Baldassar et al, 2007). Using recent data from the nationwide survey “The impact of Migration on Older Parents Left Behind in Romania”, which allow examination of intergenerational solidarity in the context of transnationalism, were revealed complex dynamics which involves both adult children as transnational migrants and elder parents as transnational non-migrants. Therefore, the multinomial logistic regression and the multiple correspondence analysis indicates, on the one hand, the precise role of the migrants as providers of remittance, and draws, on the other hand, the way in which other forms of support are distributed among the dyads. Despite a possible presupposition that parents who were left at home only are the beneficiaries of the support provided, the data show the opposite: elderly, depending on age, can be involved in both ways, as beneficiaries or as providers of help.