Somaiah Bittiandra Chand, Yeoh Brenda S A
Asia Research Institute and Yale-NUS Singapore, National University of Singapore, Singapore.
Asia Research Institute, National University of Singapore, Singapore.
Geoforum. 2023 Jul;143:103767. doi: 10.1016/j.geoforum.2023.103767.
Parental labour migration requires recalibrations of care arrangements within the left-behind family. Existing studies of left-behind families, however, have largely concentrated on parental rather than grandparental caregiving of grandchildren. We argue that grandparents are pivotal to care work and changing family formations within migrant-sending villages. Grandparents provide supplementary care, substitutive care and even reconstitutive care, depending on the migration and marital status of the parents. The paper emphasizes the often unilateral care-contracts between grandparents and migrant parents, drawing on material primarily from the qualitative interviews of grandparent carers of left-behind children, and the grandchildren themselves. By considering a variety of family contexts in flux as a result of parental migration (mother, father or both parents) and marital dissolution amidst migration, we examine family situations holistically by taking into account the different modes of care provided by grandparents (occasionally in tandem with aunts) within changing care contexts.
父母外出打工需要对留守儿童家庭的照料安排进行重新调整。然而，现有的关于留守儿童家庭的研究大多集中在父母对孙辈的照料上，而非祖父母对孙辈的照料。我们认为，祖父母对于劳务输出村的照料工作和不断变化的家庭构成至关重要。祖父母会根据父母的外出务工情况和婚姻状况，提供补充性照料、替代性照料甚至重构性照料。本文主要基于对留守儿童的祖父母照料者以及孙辈本人的定性访谈材料，强调了祖父母与外出务工父母之间往往单方面的照料契约。通过考虑因父母外出务工（母亲、父亲或父母双方）以及务工期间婚姻解体而处于不断变化中的各种家庭情况，我们在不断变化的照料环境中，综合考虑祖父母（偶尔还有姑姑）提供的不同照料模式，对家庭状况进行全面审视。
