Older people’s contribution to development through carework: the role of childcare by grandparents in migration and development
Older people’s contribution to development through carework: the role of childcare by grandparents in migration and development
This article applies a generational lens to understanding the role of older people in development, focusing primarily on older parents who stay in areas of origin while their adult children emigrate. An emerging body of literature from around the world demonstrates that older parents frequently provide childcare for their migrant family members, mainly in the country of origin, and sometimes through migrating themselves. This article goes further. It makes the conceptual argument that this carework should be regarded as development work. Drawing on research into Albanian families, located in Albania and Greece, the article asks how does carework by older people contribute to development and what are the relations of power around this? The analysis shows that grandparents provide significant support particularly for childcare but also for social reproduction and critically for building and maintaining productive assets and safety nets for migrants in their home country. In short, grandparent carers are the lynchpins in complex intergenerational strategies of migration and livelihood development. The analysis contributes to the literature on migration and development by bringing older people from the margins to the centre of these debates. Older people’s childcare, together with other productive and reproductive activities that they undertake for migrant children in countries of origin, is central to invisibilized ‘economies of care’ that underpin migration’s contribution to development. Moreover, this carework by older people contributes to development in home and host countries, thus bridging the Global South–Global North divide. Finally, older people’s carework is gendered, with older women doing the vast majority. Taken together, these insights disrupt two dominant (economistic and Eurocentric) narratives that: (a) development in migration contexts only happens in the Global South and (b) the most significant drivers of this development are migrants’ social and financial remittances from the Global North.
Albania, care, care and development, carework, childcare, older people, older people and development, Carework, Migration and development, Older people in development
444–460
Vullnetari, Julie
463db806-c809-43d6-9795-1104e3a5788b
Vullnetari, Julie
463db806-c809-43d6-9795-1104e3a5788b
Vullnetari, Julie
(2023)
Older people’s contribution to development through carework: the role of childcare by grandparents in migration and development.
Progress in Development Studies, 23 (4), .
(doi:10.1177/14649934231195511).
Abstract
This article applies a generational lens to understanding the role of older people in development, focusing primarily on older parents who stay in areas of origin while their adult children emigrate. An emerging body of literature from around the world demonstrates that older parents frequently provide childcare for their migrant family members, mainly in the country of origin, and sometimes through migrating themselves. This article goes further. It makes the conceptual argument that this carework should be regarded as development work. Drawing on research into Albanian families, located in Albania and Greece, the article asks how does carework by older people contribute to development and what are the relations of power around this? The analysis shows that grandparents provide significant support particularly for childcare but also for social reproduction and critically for building and maintaining productive assets and safety nets for migrants in their home country. In short, grandparent carers are the lynchpins in complex intergenerational strategies of migration and livelihood development. The analysis contributes to the literature on migration and development by bringing older people from the margins to the centre of these debates. Older people’s childcare, together with other productive and reproductive activities that they undertake for migrant children in countries of origin, is central to invisibilized ‘economies of care’ that underpin migration’s contribution to development. Moreover, this carework by older people contributes to development in home and host countries, thus bridging the Global South–Global North divide. Finally, older people’s carework is gendered, with older women doing the vast majority. Taken together, these insights disrupt two dominant (economistic and Eurocentric) narratives that: (a) development in migration contexts only happens in the Global South and (b) the most significant drivers of this development are migrants’ social and financial remittances from the Global North.
Text
Vullnetari (2023) Older people & childcare in M-D_AL_AM-1Aug23
- Accepted Manuscript
Text
vullnetari-2023-older-people-s-contribution-to-development-through-carework-the-role-of-childcare-by-grandparents-in
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More information
Accepted/In Press date: 28 July 2023
e-pub ahead of print date: 4 October 2023
Additional Information:
Funding Information:
This article draws partly on my doctoral research at the University of Sussex which was funded by the Economic and Social Research Council during 2004–07 [grant number: PTA-030-2004-00008], for which I am grateful.
Keywords:
Albania, care, care and development, carework, childcare, older people, older people and development, Carework, Migration and development, Older people in development
Identifiers
Local EPrints ID: 484770
URI: http://eprints.soton.ac.uk/id/eprint/484770
ISSN: 1464-9934
PURE UUID: 1c64e2dd-ec2e-434d-81f9-df1309d139ad
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Date deposited: 21 Nov 2023 17:40
Last modified: 18 Mar 2024 03:30
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