A study of migrant mothers: Return home and role change

✍ Scribed by Mika Haritos-Fatouros; Despina Sakka

• Publisher: Springer US
• Year: 1988
• Tongue: English
• Weight: 748 KB
• Volume: 11
• Category: Article
• ISSN: 0165-0653
• DOI: 10.1007/bf00366929

✦ Synopsis

For migrant groups moving from one place to another usually means dealing with contradictions between home and host countries and with different cultural norms. Taking into consideration migrant women's previous status in the village and their new one in the host country, it can be said that migration is a turning point in women's lives. Research findings show that increased empioyability of women in the host country increases their independence and leads to sex role changes and changes within the family.

Return migration is the last stage in the migration cycle and it is a rather neglected and little researched topic as yet. The purpose of this paper is to report on research on role changes within the family.

Three groups of migrant mothers (two groups living in West Germany and one group repatriated) were compared with a control group in the District of Drama, Macedonia, on work employment and types of responsibilities concerning their children's upbringing.

Results showed that mothers who live in West Germany are equally responsible with fathers for the child's social behavior, school performance and expenses and were significantly different from the control group. Return mothers were as much as fathers responsible for the child's school performance in contrast to the control group. More mothers than fathers, however, were responsible for the child's relationships and fewer mothers than fathers were responsible for the child's expenses; in this respect both parents resembled those of the control group. It seems therefore, that migrant mothers take over different roles in the host country than those of the controls, whereas return mothers adopt to a large extent the stereotyped role of control mothers.