JS-65.6
Transnational Care Networks of Older Migrants in Australia. the Influence of Migration and Health Care Policies on Transnational Care Strategies.
In this paper I will examine the implications health- and migration policies on transnational aged care strategies of different migration groupings in Australia. The paper draws on the results of an ethnographical and biographical study on transnational support networks and aged care of older migrants in Perth. The presented case studies demonstrate that increasingly restrictive migration- and citizenship policies, and especially the lack of bilateral agreements in migration and welfare policies, are considerable obstacles for transnational caregiving. In this paper I will examine, how the older migrants and their families reconfigure care arrangements in the context of the structural constraints of an immobility regime. The case studies will give an insight into the close and distant support networks of elderly migrants and the practice of distant and transnational family care. Also, the unequal access to mobility, which impacts on already existing global asymmetries and inequalities in the capacity to circulate care, shall be discussed. Whereas professional, affluent, and mobile migrants, often from the Global North, can move freely between different countries without severe visa or financial obstacles, other migrants e.g. refugees are restricted by migratory politics, border regimes, and insufficient financial resources.