Transnational Families: The Right to Family Life In The Age Of Global Migration

Abstract

Transnational families –families that maintain kinship and solidarity across national borders– are becoming ubiquitous in modern economies. These will only increase as States encourage the movement of workers to fill labor shortages. But workers don’t necessarily mean workers’ families. State and international regulations have done little to adapt laws and policies regulating the family to match the plasticity of post-modern transnational families. By contrast, transnational families have developed semi-formal cross-border welfare systems that supplement them. In particular, they have developed often-misrecognized childcare arrangements that challenge the common conceptions on which state-centric normative frameworks are based.

The dissertation describes some of the key challenges that traditional readings of Family Law encounter when dealing with transnational families and the contemporary realities of family life. It argues that Family law can no longer be read in isolation from other areas of law, including labor law, immigration law, social security and welfare law, among others. The dissertation describes key attributes and challenges of transnational parenting and the growing phenomenon of transnational families within the European Union, using the case of children left behind by labor migrants in Central Eastern European member states.

The research contributes to the rethinking and effectiveness of contemporary family law by providing a new understanding of the functioning of “transnational care” and the institutional context that shapes transnational family life. As such, it shows how transnational parenting within semi-formal welfare systems, is a functioning yet neglected part of the “right to family life”. It further argues that to harness this reality, States and the European community should accommodate transnational family life. They should also refrain from applying to transnational parents punitive measures designed to address abuse and neglect in non-migrant families. Filial love does not recognize borders.