Transnational Migration and Home in Older Age by Katie Walsh Lena Näre

Author:Katie Walsh, Lena Näre [Katie Walsh, Lena Näre]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780367869328
Barnesnoble:
Publisher: Taylor & Francis
Published: 2019-12-10T00:00:00+00:00

What my respondents perceived as American culture or Americanisation of intergenerational relationships also motivated them to rethink where they belong at a later life stage. For many returnees I studied, Americanization or Westernization suggested that they increasingly lose power or authority over the younger generation in the family. Virtually all of my respondents emphasised that under the influence of American culture, they no longer could subordinate their children’s will to theirs. Given this context, few returnees I studied wanted to rely on the next generation for various forms of support. Older immigrants I interviewed were concerned that they might receive the care provided by their children and their children’s spouses at the expense of their own autonomy and dignity.

This concern was especially salient when my respondents addressed questions on living with their children. As they reported, cohabitating with their children did not guarantee that they would receive the types of physical and emotional care that they anticipated. Rather, it might require them to compromise and adapt their lifestyle according to their children’s living arrangements. By contrast, many returnees who settled in Taiwan described the comfort of self-sufficiency. As these returnees stated, their savings and pensions in the US could be easily translated into respectable wealth in Taiwan, which allowed them to live in high-end old-age homes and/or to hire migrant domestic workers from Southeast Asia to take care of them in their later lives. This arrangement, my respondents believed, was both a financially feasible solution to the problems they encountered in the processes of ageing and an option for living a dignified later life. Some of my respondents, especially those parents who relocated to the US for the benefit of the next generation, were not completely happy with this split-household arrangement, maintaining that they might have compromised their well-being by adjusting to the demands of Americanisation/Westernisation. These return-ees, however, perceived that the impact of American culture on the next generation was an irresistible and irreversible trend within their families. As a 76-year-old return migrant, Mr. Sun, expressed, he did not regret living thousands of miles away from their children. Instead, he highlighted the benefits of being independent and self-sufficient:

I don’t want to depend on my children. I live in Taiwan. I don’t have my children around, but I can make decisions about my own life. I can have whatever I like. I can cook whatever I want to eat. I can arrange my schedule at my own will. I can walk around in my underwear and pyjamas in my own place.… I basically decide my own life, and I don’t have to consult with my children.

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