Family and Migration: An Ethical Challenge

In the last decades, family has gained a very important role, for both the extension of the research field of migration studies and the rethinking of integration models within the receiving society: the challenge is to adopt a new analytical perspective, represented by the family and its strategies to survive and develop, a fundamental decisional unit in the domain of migration choices, strategies, and behaviours. According to various influential contemporary theoretical perspectives, family is usually the decision-making unity or –at any rate– the institution on the behalf of which the choice to emigrate is made and which “utilizes” its members for its needs of survival and development. Family is also the agency that receives and manages the precious flow of remittances coming from family members working abroad, determining its impact on the economies of the sending communities: in this sense, family is a strategic actor for the economic and social development of the sending countries and can activate forms of co-operation and support. Thanks to the revenues produced by their parents and other family members working abroad, new generations can achieve high levels of education, with a positive impact on the process of human capital accumulation and development. On the other hand, family can also be the source of processes of coercion and conflicting dynamics that may become causes or consequences of migration. Moreover, left-behind families and especially children represent a dramatic phenomenon, challenging both the public and the religious institutions, because of the social, educative, psychological and moral costs it can produce. Finally, obeying to family economic wellbeing, contemporary migrations could generate deep human and social costs, making it particularly manifest the possible tensions among the different components –economic, social, cultural and spiritual– of development [Caritas in Veritate, n. 31]. On the other shore of the migratory process, family reveals to be a factor that strongly influences the evolution of migratory projects and supports the process of migrants’ integration, even if it sometimes imposes a “generational sacrifice” in order to assure the (presumed) best chances to the members of the other generations. The lack of family relations and support makes dysfunctional behaviours more likely, such as alcoholism, deviance and drug addiction. On the other hand, family reunion, particularly if realized after long periods of separation, can reveal itself a difficult or even traumatic experience for the individuals involved, suggesting the need for a special support to be given to the families by both the origin and the receiving societies. Migrant offspring, particularly if belonging to low status families, are especially exposed to the risk of school failure and professional underachievement. Moreover, from the standpoint of the hosting society, the presence of migrant families is surely a phenomenon that transforms the impact and significance of migration, translating an economic issue into a political one. Particularly in countries that have institutionalized the “guest worker” model, the presence of families completely redefines the assessment of the cost/benefit trade-off generated by migration, obliging educational and welfare institutions to face new needs and new challenges. At the same time, this same presence could enrich school offer –thanks to the opportunity to develop intercultural awareness and intercultural changes and dialogue– and even stimulate welfare regimes to adapt themselves to the novel structure of social risks and social needs, as it has been emerging in a global and “mobile” society. Lastly, as far as Christian communities are concerned, the presence of families coming from abroad can be seen as an authentic prophetic opportunity to assess their catholicity and search for their true, universal face. Notwithstanding the fact that family constitutes a crucial actor in the process of human mobility, the receiving societies’ expectations concerning migration continues to be predominantly founded on an atomistic conception. The same is true as far sending countries are concerned, considering that the vast presence of left-behind families constitutes the best guarantee of continuing to receive remittances from abroad. As an emblematic consequence of this gap, researches denounce that family reunification is not always the best solution, because it could involve a deterioration of life chances of migrants’ children and even of the relationship between various family members and generations. Not to mention the fact that most single migrants are induced to renounce to their own family projects (as it is dramatically demonstrated by the high incidence of voluntary abortions among migrant women) or even to “sacrifice” themselves for the wellbeing of left-behind family members. Moreover, the same fact of having a member working abroad sometimes transforms the family in a voracious consumer of remittances, discouraging the search of a job or other kinds of activation. In all these situations, we risk to forget that each person must always be considered as an aim in his/herself –as it is unambiguously stressed by the Catholic Social Thought–, and not only a means to guarantee family wellbeing. Family is also generally undervalued in the legislation concerning immigration, which is founded on an individualistic perspective. As we will see, the European experience is particularly emblematic, because of its “schizophrenic” attempt to keep together the logic of the “gastarbeiter” (that is the migrant admitted with a temporary permit strictly linked to the working condition) and that of the denizenship (a status right now accorded to the vast majority of migrants that guarantees the access to a rich range of rights and opportunities, together with a permanent authorization to stay and, of course, the right to reunite their family members). But these kinds of problems are obviously not exclusive to the European landscape: it is sufficient to see at the phenomenon of so called “mixed status families”, emerging in the US context, not to mention the situation of some Asian immigration countries, where migrants are supposed and treated as atomistic workers, with neither present nor potential family ties. In this regard, family is an emblematic example of the gap between social processes and their regulation, questioning our societies about the human and social costs of globalisation, particularly with respect to the migrants’ children’s experience. Fulfilling this gap will imply the commitment of both receiving and sending countries, public authorities and civil society’s organizations, together with local and national Churches, in a common effort to envisage new migration policies and practices, based on the human dignity principle. Finally, for our local and national Churches family migration represents, at the same time, a phenomenon challenging their capacity of hosting and discernment, and an extraordinary occasion to taste their faith and ecclesial experience.