(Trans)national intergenerational care contract. Attitudes and practises of transnational families towards elderly care

Abstract

In this article I am focused on the functioning of the transnational intergenerational care system. This is dynamic, as it is bound up with the life cycle of the transnational family, and on the one hand, denotes practices associated with any assistance parents provide to their migrant children and on the other - in the event of elderly people being faced with health and basic living problems - with the phenomenon of migrants caring for their parents in old age. The transnational system of care also incorporates the involvement (or lack of involvement, as far as this triggers consequences that are of relevance here) of relatively immobile people, for example the siblings of migrants who provide (or not, as the case may be) domestic support for their elderly parents. In this article I adopt the thesis that migrants who function in different care regimes change not only their own but also their parents' attitudes towards elderly care.

W artykule opisano funkcjonowanie transnarodowego systemu opieki międzygeneracyjnej. Jest on dynamiczny, związany z etapami rozwoju rodziny transnarodowej i obejmuje zarówno praktyki związane z opieką realizowaną przez osoby starsze nad dziećmi migrantów, jak i z opieką nad starszym osobami realizowaną przez migrantów. W artykule przyjęto tezę, iż migranci, funkcjonując w różnych systemach opieki, zmieniają zarówno swoje, jak i rodziców postawy i praktyki opiekuńcze.