Twelfth Global Studies Conference

Abstract

Over the last forty years, the Philippines has had one of the highest rates of economic migration worldwide resulting in a large number of children (approximately 1 of 3) within the country now living with at least one parent working or otherwise residing abroad and aging parents without their younger children. In the current study, we highlight the various ways by which mobility/migration has impacted Filipino family life by presenting findings from three of our own studies on Filipino migration: 1) how rural-to-urban migrants in the Philippines cope with family separation and re-make family life through fictive kinships and long-distance care; 2) how a rural village in Northern Philippines has transformed through skip generation caregiving due to migration; 3) how Filipino families in Poland develop and maintain community/family life among co-ethnic peers in Wrolcaw, Krakow, and Warsaw; and 4) and how Filipino families shift in their parenting beliefs in response to contextual demands and norms in four communities in the United States. Together, these studies highlight the complex ways in which migration has impacted Filipino family life, the diversity in the process and experience of migration among Filipinos in different contexts; and both stability and change in parenting and family life in the age of migration and mobility.