Transnational Families and the Well-Being of Children: Conceptual and Methodological Challenges

Family research and scholarship on immigrant families has evolved in the past decade to include factors such as community context, family environment, and individual attitudes to explain immigrant family formation and functioning (see Glick, 2010, for a review). Nevertheless, methodologically and theoretically, families are still predominantly conceived of as nuclear, living together, and bounded by the nation state. Family studies emphasize geographical proximity as a prerequisite for interaction and exchange within families, thereby eliding family ties that cross national borders. As a result, family practices across borders are ignored or assumed to be unfeasible (Baldassar & Baldock, 1999; Mazzucato & Schans, 2008) and transnational families—conceived of as families with members living in different nation states—have been treated as a temporary phenomenon, with family reunification in the host society as the preferred outcome for all family members (Landolt & Da, 2005). In contrast, research from the past decade in the areas of migration and development has demonstrated that individuals’ migration-related choices are related to their family members’