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Centre for Policy on Ageing | |
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Orphan pensioners and migrating grandparents
— the impact of mass migration on older people in rural Albania | | Author(s) | Russell King, Julie Vullnetari |
| Journal title | Ageing and Society, vol 26, part 5, September 2006 |
| Pages | pp 783-816 |
| Source | http://www.journals.cambridge.org/jid_ASO |
| Keywords | Migration ; Rural areas ; Retired persons ; Grandparents ; Family relationships ; Albania. |
| Annotation | Since 1990, Albania has witnessed rural out-migration on a massive scale, both to other countries (chiefly to Italy and Greece) and internally to Tirana and other major towns. The scale of this migration has disrupted the multigenerational rural and social kinship systems that, before 1990, displayed strong and coherent family bonds, and simultaneously accommodated paternalistic state directives and were supported by welfare provision for all members of the population. The sudden, political, social and rural dislocations that followed the end of the communist regime have made older people particularly vulnerable: many have been left behind by their emigrant children, creating the phenomenon of socially isolated "elderly orphans". While the migrants' remittances cushion the social isolation, the loss of children and grandchildren through emigration has undermined older people's self-respect and raison d'être in Albanian family life. This paper based on fieldwork and interviews in regions of heavy out-migration in northern and southern Albania, examines the human impact of emigration on the older people who have been left behind as well as their coping mechanisms, one being to follow their children abroad to care for their grandchildren, enabling the "middle generation" working age parents to engage in paid work. (RH). |
| Accession Number | CPA-060816007 A |
| Classmark | TN: RL: BB6: SW: DS:SJ: 7AI |
Data © Centre for Policy on Ageing |
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| ...from the Ageinfo database published by Centre for Policy on Ageing. |
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