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

1. “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

2. 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

3. 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

4. Why study immigrant’s 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 Sweden’s 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

5. Growing number of aged immigrants

6. 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) Results from our previous research show no increasing distances in Sweden (Malmberg & Pettersson 2007)

7. 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

8. Research questions • Are there differences in intergenerational distances between the immigrants and those born in Sweden? • Are there differences between immigrant’s 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?

9. 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

10. 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

11. 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.

12. Logistic regressions

13. Logistic regressions

14. Logistic regressions

15. 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

16. But … No far-reaching conclusions Further research?