Special Issue: Intergenerational relations among immigrants in Europe

The articles featured in this special issue provide new evidence on various aspects of intergenerational relations among European immigrant populations. By comparing Turkish immigrants in Germany with similar families who stayed in Turkey, Baykara-Krumme and Fokkema find that ‘full-solidarity families’ – i.e. families for which intergenerational bonds and interdependence are strongest – are more frequent among migrant than stayer families, whereas the autonomous type of family is more widespread among those families remaining in Turkey than migrant ones. Karpinska and Dykstra, who explore multiple dimensions of family solidarity in transnational Polish families, show that a large majority of young adults recently migrated to the Netherlands – and whose ageing parents are still in Poland – are able to abide by the strong family solidarity norms that characterise the Polish family system and comply with the familialistic nature of the elderly’s safety nets in their country of origin. Fernández-Reino and González-Ferrer analyse the level of closeness and conflict in the relationship between Latino immigrant mothers and their adolescent children living in Spain. Albertini, Gasperoni, and Mantovani focus on normative and functional solidarity and specifically address the norms of family solidarity that underpin the specific intergenerational support behaviour of different groups of immigrants residing in Italy. De Valk and Bordone investigate the difference between natives and migrants as regards the likelihood of adopting intergenerational co-residence as a strategy to support elderly parents in five European countries (Austria, Belgium, France, Germany and the Netherlands). Using a unique longitudinal dataset of first-generation immigrants living in France, Wolff makes a relevant contribution to the literature on intergenerational financial transfers in transnational families. (the ELIPA survey)