Differential impacts of migration on the family networks of older people in Indonesia: a comparative analysis

Abstract

Distance migration has long been familiar to Indonesians, given the country’s size and multi-island geography. Current transnational movement further extends this experience, as one of several movement options. Longitudinal demographic and anthropological study of three Indonesian communities provides comparative evidence of the structure and variation of movement, with particular reference to impacts of younger people’s migration on the older generation. The gradual expansion of network migration over ever-greater distances reveals local dynamics that underlie a more general historical process. The norm is one in which a network balance is struck between the activities of elders and their children, some of whom are living nearby, whilst others live at varying distances away. Significant material advantages of remittances and other support are more likely to accrue to members of higher socio-economic strata, and to those with more cohesive kin networks. In poorer strata, distance migration tends to provide one of a number of supports that enable families to survive, but not to improve their situation substantially. Remittances from transnational migrants, as with internal distance migration, are important chiefly as expressions of network solidarity. One of their principal requirements is usually the continuing role of elders’ own active network contributions.

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ORCID for Elisabeth Schröder-Butterfill: orcid.org/0000-0002-5071-8710

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