Transnational migration and family ties: a comparative study

Abstract

There is a continuously increasing number of people who are migrating from poorer countries to economically and politically developed ones, known as the Global North, seeking a higher standard of living. Additionally, the tightening migration policies, particularly in the European Union and North America since the early 2000s, have led to a growing trend of families living separately, the so-called transnational families. Prior to the 1990s, migration was seen as a unidirectional flow from the home country to the host country and distance considered a barrier to connections among family members. Nowadays, migrants are perceived as transmigrants who create connections with their host country when at the same time maintain their ties with their country of origin, creating transnational spaces. This study aims to explore the impact of social ties and more precisely family ties on migration decisions, focusing on labor migrants. It seeks to examine migration as a transnational process and drawing on existing ethnographic studies, it explores how transnational family ties are sustained and their influence on migrants’ experience in the host country. The main arguments are that social and family networks play a role in migration decisions, facilitating the process. Additionally, it assumes that migration, in turn, affects family ties, and the study aims to uncover the emergence of transnational practices between family members, such as communication and the preservation of cultural elements, in order to maintain a sense of belonging within the family despite geographical distances. The methodology that was used in this particular study was the comparative bibliographical approach. It was based on ethnographic accounts and research and the cases chosen were the Ukrainian transnational families in Italy and Albanian transnational families in Greece.