Valentina Mazzucato

Africa Europe: A double engagement

This introduction to the special issue entitled ‘Africa<>Europe: Transnational Linkages, Multi-Sited Lives’ outlines the history of the African migrant presence in Europe, gives an account of the contexts which shape contemporary migration, and surveys the approaches to international migration from Africa which have influenced researchers since the 1960s. Linking the contributions to the special issue is the theme of migrants’ transnational ‘double engagement’ with both Africa and Europe. The paper examines this theme across three domains of the lived experience of African migrants and refugees in Europe: ‘Livelihoods’, ‘Families’, and ‘Identities’. We conclude with an assessment of what can be learned (theoretically and methodologically) from the study of African transmigration, and suggest future lines of research.

Population Growth and the Environment in Africa: Local Informal Institutions, the Missing Link

Abstract Population and environment debates regarding Africa, whether Malthusian or Boserupian in nature, focus on population levels as the driving force behind the relationship between environment and society. This article argues, instead, that how people adjust to their rise in numbers is more important than are population levels. It focuses on the role of local informal institutions, such as land tenure systems, but also on customs, norms, and networks, and their change over time in mediating the relationship between people and the environment. The article is based on fieldwork conducted between 1995 and 1998 in the Sahelian and Sudano-Sahelian zones of Africa, as well as on a review of colonial documents pertaining to the area written in the first half of the twentieth century. The article concludes that adaptations made to local, informal institutions within the past century have enabled an environmentally sustainable land use within the context of a rising population and growing scarcity of natural resources.

Transnational Families Between Africa and Europe

This paper provides a descriptive and comparative analysis of transnational families with members located in Africa and Europe. It is thus far the only quantitative study, to our knowledge, that includes crosscountry comparisons and focuses on the African European context. By comparing both countries of origin and destination, differences in family arrangements are found among Ghana, Senegal, and the Democratic Republic of Congo as well as within these groups depending on the European destination countries. Findings show that dates of arrival and migrant legal status are most commonly associated with transnational family forms. Family and gender norms at origin, migration motivations, destination country family reunification and migration policies, and destination country characteristics related to language, employment opportunities, and educational system help to explain the differences found.

The Quality of Parent–Child Relationships in Transnational Families: Angolan and Nigerian Migrant Parents in The Netherlands

An increasing body of transnational family literature finds that transnational family life challenges relationships between migrant parents and their children in the home country. However, transnational families are not uniform and function differently according to their specific characteristics. The aim of this study is to investigate how different factors are associated with the quality of parent–child relationships in transnational families. Based on an extensive literature review, five factors are found to be of special importance: gender of the migrant parent; contact and remittances; characteristics of the caregiver; length of separation; and the age of the child and age at separation. There is no quantitative evidence on the relationship between these factors, and how parents assess the relationship with their child in the origin country. This study uses survey data collected among 131 Angolan and 134 Nigerian migrant parents in The Netherlands with children in the country of origin in order to analyse these factors simultaneously. The study finds that contact and a good relationship between migrant parent and caregiver are important factors associated with good transnational parent–child relationships. However, important differences are found between Angolans and Nigerians, attesting to the importance of the characteristics of a particular migratory flow.

Reunifying versus Living Apart Together Across Borders: A Comparative Analysis of Sub-Saharan Migration to Europe

This article studies the process of reunification in Europe among “living apart together across borders” (LATAB) couples of African origin (DR Congo, Ghana, and Senegal). Couple reunion is conceived as a multilevel process, wherein state selection (through immigration policies in destination countries) interacts with self-selection (at the couple level), under influence of the social context at origin. Based on event history analyses of the MAFE project, empirical results show that LATAB is a majority and durable living arrangement for sub-Saharan migrants, that the odds if reunifying depend on gender and inter-generational relationships, and that restrictive contexts at destination do not deter couple reunion.

Educational performance of children of migrant parents in Ghana, Nigeria and Angola

ABSTRACT There is no empirical research on the school performance of children who live separated from their parents in sub-Saharan Africa—a major migrant sending region in the world. This study uses survey data from junior and secondary school children and youths in Ghana (N = 2760), Angola (N = 2243) and Nigeria (N = 2168) to examine how different transnational family formations such as internal or international parental absence accompanied by migration or divorce, who is the migrant parent and who is the caregiver, the stability of the caregiving arrangement and remittances relate with the school performance of children who stay behind. School performance is measured through an index of grades in language, mathematics and science. The results show that international parental migration (Ghana), the internal parental migration accompanied by divorce/separation (Nigeria) and migration of both parents (Ghana and Nigeria) are likely predictors for decreased school performance. No effects are observed when parents are abroad and divorced/separated, when only one parent migrates, when children are in a stable care arrangement or when children receive remittances or not. The analyses show that the overall relationship between parental absence and education varies by the transnational dimension being analysed and by context.

Transnational families and the subjective well-being of migrant parents: Angolan and Nigerian parents in the Netherlands

Studies on transnational families argue that the subjective well-being of migrant parents is negatively affected by living separated from their children. Most studies employ qualitative methods without a control group and hence are not able to distinguish whether the effects found are associated with separation only or with other factors. This paper investigates the association between parental subjective well-being and parent–child separation by comparing migrant parents who have at least one child in their country of origin with those who live with all their children in the Netherlands. The paper further investigates whether the same associations are found between migrant groups from Angola and Nigeria. Results indicate that transnational parents indeed report lower subjective well-being, as measured by happiness, life satisfaction and mental health for both groups and additionally, self-assessed health for Angolans. However, legal status, socio-economic status and the quality of the parent–child relationship are found to be important mediators.

In transit: Changing social networks of sub-Saharan African migrants in Turkey and Greece

Abstract Research on the role of social networks in human migration has mainly relied on single snapshots in time. This paper focuses on the changes in composition and usage of the transnational networks of migrants and why these changes occur. It is based on ethnography and network analysis with forty sub-Saharan African migrants in two transit contexts: Turkey and Greece, over a 17-month period. Findings show that relationship preferences, resources and communication infrastructures constitute an individual opportunity infrastructure affecting how critical events produce network changes. This process is ongoing through the continued experience of critical events, suggesting that the role of networks fluctuates over time.

Transnational Families Between Ghana, the Netherlands and the UK

This chapter investigates family life in the context of international migration between Ghana and Europe. Families engage in cross-border practices, such as nuclear and extended family members receiving remittances, goods, phone calls and visits from migrants abroad. Importantly, there is also evidence of reverse remittances, that is, flows from households in Ghana to their migratory contacts abroad. Transnational family forms, in which one or more members of the nuclear family are living abroad while the other members remain in the home or another country, are common. The extent to which migrants live transnationally or together with their nuclear family depends on their individual socio-economic and migration-related characteristics, but also on the destination country’s policies and structures. Furthermore, transnational families do not always reunify and when they do, they often reunify in Ghana rather than the country of destination.

Gendered Perceptions of Migration Among Ghanaian Children in Transnational Care

This study empirically measures the perceptions towards maternal and paternal migration of male and female children who stay behind in Ghana. It analyses survey data collected in 2010 among secondary school children aged 11–18 in four urban areas with high out-migration rates: the greater Accra region, Kumasi, Sunyani and Cape Coast (N = 1965). The results show significant gendered differences in how children perceive parental migration. Specifically, female children have more positive views towards maternal and paternal migration when parents are abroad and in a stable marital relationship, when the assessed parent is abroad but the other parent is the caregiver in Ghana, when there is a frequent change in the care arrangement, and when female children receive remittances. These findings were not replicated for male children. The analysis highlights the sensitivity of the results to the gender of the child and to the characteristics of children’s transnational lives that are being analysed.