Gunnar Malmberg

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Immigration and Intergenerational Affection -
Child Parent Proximity among Immigrants in the
Swedish Welfare State

• Gunnar Malmberg
• Anna Pettersson
• Department of Social
• and Economic Geography, Umeå University, Sweden
• Centre for Population Studies
• Ageing and Living Conditions
• Programme , Umeå University, Sweden

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Why study intergenerational distances?

• Intergenerational distances are important for the
  possibilities of care-taking in an ageing society
• 2. Distances between elderly people and their
  adult children tell us something about social
  relations
• Social ties ? Distances
• Distances ? Contacts, care, assistance
• Welfare institutions ? Distance and contacts

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• Swedes live farther away and
• have fewer intergenerational contacts
• Due to
• Socio-cultural values?
• Socio-economic differences?
• Institutional conditions?

Percentage having contact every
week and Percentage having children within 5 km
Italy
Sweden
Sweden
Sources SHARE-database
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Why study immigrants intergenerational distances?

• Sweden has a large immigrant population, more
  than 10
• Labour migrants in the 1950s and 1960s
• Refugees from 1970s ?
• Family unification migrants
• Recent migrants bring their parents
• Labour migrants are growing old
• An increasing number of Swedens elderly are
  immigrants
• Caretaking of elderly immigrants is a new
  challenge
• Studies of immigrants may tell us something about
  the influence from socio-cultural, socio-economic
  and institutional conditions

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Growing number of aged immigrants
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• Theories on intergenerational distances
• Modernisation theory
• Decreasing importance of family support
• Individualisation
• Migration and urbanisation
• Alternative views
• No linear process towards decreasing family
  support
• Different forms of intergenerational contacts in
  various contexts
• (Aboderin 2004)
• Intergenerational contacts are becoming more
  important in American society
• (Bengtson 2001)
• No increasing distances between child and
  parents since the 1960s in US
• (Rogerson et al 1993)

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The immigrant population

• A large share of the immigrants come from
  countries where families are crucial for
  care-taking of and by the elderly
• Many are not so well integrated into the Swedish
  society
• Many have lived in the Swedish welfare state for
  a long time

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Research questions

• Are there differences in intergenerational
  distances between the immigrants and those born
  in Sweden?
• Are there differences between immigrants by
  origin?
• Do the socio-economic situation influence the
  intergenerational distances?
• Do we see a tendency to adaptation when living in
  a society with a welfare model for care-taking?

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• Two problems of analysing intergenerational
• distances among immigrants from registers
• Register data does not include family links for
  all immigrants
• Those who stay and survive are not a random
  sample of the original immigrant population

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Data

• Individual data from official Swedish registers
• Immigrants aged 65 75 living in Sweden in 2002
• Immigrated 1968 1978 (age 31 -51 and mainly
  labour migrants)
• People who have registered family links to adult
  children (over 20) living in Sweden
• n 14442
• Parents born in Sweden aged 65 75 with adult
  children in 2002

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• Socio-cultural background
• Region of origin

• Socio-economic situation
• Education level
• Income

Living within 100 meter from nearest child

• Adaptation
• Age of immigration

• Control variables
• Gender
• Family members
• Marital status
• Region etc.

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Logistic regressions
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Logistic regressions
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Logistic regressions
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Conclusions

• Intergenerational distances are larger in the
  investigated immigrant population compared to
  those born in Sweden, after more than 24 years in
  Sweden
• Socio-cultural differences still affect
  intergenerational proximity
• For immigrants coming from non-European
  countries, high education had a negative effect
  on co-residing
• This indicate that socio-economic conditions
  influence intergenerational distances among these
  immigrants
• Those who came early have somewhat shorter
  distances
• This could be the result of adaptation or of
  selection

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• But
• No far-reaching conclusions
• Further research?