Copiii migranţilor: cauza emigrării şi/sau motivaţia reîntoarcerii (cazul Republicii Moldova)

Abstract

Family is the foundation of a society, the "basic cell" of a country. The state of the families reflects the state of whole society – in an unstable and vulnerable society, the family is vulnerable, too. Given that the impact of migration falls upon such essential institution as family is, it proves the importance of a complex analysis of family-migration mutual influence. In recent years, in Moldova, labor migration has acquired a mass character, leading to a significant increase of the number of children without parental care. Migrant parents’ tend to provide children with a better living environment (more in material terms, than educational or moral ones), unfortunately has negative social consequences: broken families, children without parental care and comfort. These children develop vague personalities, and consequently, form a generation of adults with social integration problems. The lack of control of the parents over their children is visible in terms of academic achievement or adoption of deviant behavior. Frequent comebacks home of the parents could greatly reduce the psychological and social costs of separation of their children. Migrants, and especially women, often find it hard to readjust when they return. Long separation can cause problems in the home with both partners and children, leading to psychological and emotional stress. They may also discover that little remains of the remittances they have sent if their families have used the funds for basic survival or for consumption. As a result many migrant workers are frequently pressured to re-migrate. We explore reasons for return migrations which are motivated by immigrants’ concerns about their children. We develop a simple model, whereparents have paternalistic preferences. We show that parental concerns about the child may lead to an increase, or to a decrease in the tendency to return to the home country.