Migration, Ageing and Transnational Care Giving

Ageing and international migration are key challenges of the twenty-first century. Migration reshapes family structures, care obligations and social support networks and ageing often creates cross-border care needs. Migrants and their descendants may provide emotional, social and financial support to relatives abroad, while also receiving care from family and kinship networks across national boundaries.Their intersection is increasingly visible in transnational family and kinship networks as well as in cross-border care arrangements that shape the lives of migrants and their relatives across generations. Issues of interdependence, family responsibility, caregiving, health and well-being have therefore become central concerns in transnational migration research.

This panel invites contributions on migration, ageing and transnational caregiving from biographical and life-course perspectives. We welcome empirical, theoretical and methodological papers that examine transnational care practices in diverse social, cultural and geographical settings. Biographical-narrative, ethnographic and life-course approaches are especially encouraged. Possible topics include migration, ageing and caregiving across the life course; social support networks in later life; cross-border care arrangements in migrant families; intergenerational solidarity, reciprocity and obligations; ageing migrants as caregivers and care recipients; digital technologies in caregiving; gendered dimensions of care; retirement, return migration and care responsibilities; and health inequalities in migration contexts.

The panel session aims to bring together scholars from different disciplinary and geographical backgrounds to deepen understanding of how migration, ageing and transnational caregiving shape individual lives, family and intergenerational relations, social inequalities and later-life experiences.