infonet-economy

This paper examines the issue of family reunification of parents, i.e. a situation where adults living in one country bring one or both parents aged over 50, of foreign nationality and residing abroad, to live near them. The findings are based on two years of research conducted in Switzerland between 2006 and 2008. After stressing that this issue is rarely addressed in scientific literature, the article describes the research method used. There follows an analysis of the following three points: the legal framework of family reunion for parents in Switzerland, the scale of the phenomenon, and the reasons why families use family reunification. The conclusion addresses the meaning of these results in terms of the way migration policies construct the concept of family. In particular, it highlights a discrepancy between transnational intergenerational solidarity issues for migrant families and governments’ national approaches to those issues.