The Family Migration Project: Financial and Social Obligations and Indebtedness

Time: December 21, 2023, 18:00-19:00
Location: Room 211, Department of Social Work, National Taiwan University
Speaker: Lucy P. Jordan, Associate Professor, Department of Social Work and Social Administration, The University of Hong Kong
Moderator: Shu-Huah Wang, Associate Professor, Department of Social Work, National Taiwan University
 

This lecture will be conducted in English. Welcome everyone to join this event!

Lucy P. Jordan is currently an Associate Professor in the Department of Social Work and Social Administration at The University of Hong Kong. Her research focuses on the long-term impacts of transnational migration on families and children, diversity in Asian global cities, and social development challenges in middle- and low-income countries.
 

Drawing on over 15 years of research across Southeast Asia, this talk considers the contributions of a comparative approach to studying the longer-term family migration project. Migration is often a family strategy to diversify income, and, when parents migrate leaving children behind in origin locales, an opportunity to provide better nutrition and education through remittances. The longer-term results of financial security seem to remain elusive for many migrants and their families, and when unexpected events such as COVID-19 pandemic result in unplanned return and repatriation, these families may face challenges to meet basic subsistence needs, as before they entered into migration. This talk considers the challenges and opportunities that migrants and their families face in navigating the family migration project drawing on examples from different Southeast Asian contexts and diverse family migration configurations to highlight the gaps in social protection at home and abroad for these populations.