Families, Welfare, Care and the Life Course

Families, Welfare, Care and The Life Course

The SC objectives are to:

Draw wider attention in migration studies to the inter-connections between families, welfare and care, and their changing contexts.
Advance a life-course perspective in migration studies, by facilitating dialogue between scholars working on different life-course phases and transitions.
Contribute to local, national and international policy debates on welfare and care as they relate to migrants and their families, advocating for interventions to mitigate social risks across the migratory life-course.
Facilitate the career development of the next generation of researchers working in these ﬁelds.
Promote the inclusion of researchers from under-represented regions (Eastern and SouthEastern Europe, the Global South) and create more synergies between scholars based in different regions of the world.
Develop joint publications, collaborative projects and applications for funding.

Thematic Working Groups

• Financial welfare and formal institutions: covering topics such as income support within migrant families; family and child allocations; parental leave and childcare subsidies; private and public pensions; retirement as a life-course transition; welfare regimes and their intersection with migration regimes; and the question of the portability of social security beneﬁts across borders/jurisdictions.

• Healthcare and social services: covering topics such as migrants’ (and their families’) access to and usage of healthcare / social services; racism and discrimination in healthcare and social services; social determinants of health; cultural competency among healthcare / social service providers; users’ experiences of healthcare / social services; migrant workers in healthcare / social services; diaspora policies relating to healthcare entitlements; dying and end-of-life care.

• Informal care and social support: covering topics such as care chains; social networks, linked lives, loneliness; care/support for ‘left-behind’ family members; migrant grandparents and childcare contributions; intergenerational care exchanges; use of information and communication technologies within transnational families.

• Migration and life-course transitions: covering topics such as ‘Zero generation’ migration (older parents following adult children); the relationship between family formation and migration; international retirement migration; return and circular migration at retirement.

Further information about the rationale and governance of the Standing commitee can be found here. (link opens in new tab)