Abstract
This special issue of the journal of Population, Space and Place aims to address the gap in transnational families studies by identifying if there are common patterns and effects of transnational family life across countries and regions, using cross‐country comparative analyses. In this editorial introduction, we highlight the overarching themes emerging from seven papers, which employ new large‐scale surveys specifically designed to collect information about transnational family life across different Latin American, African, and Southeast Asian countries and China. We discuss how these comparative studies offer new ways of understanding transnational families by focusing on their prevalence, composition, the experiences of their members, and how these change over time. We also highlight how differing and changing notions of care over space and a person's lifetime influence how transnational families are created, reproduced, maintained, and experienced. In general, the issue as a whole emphasises the need to take structural factors in both sending and receiving contexts into account when studying the form that transnational families take, how this changes over time, and the general and specific gendered effects they have on different members.
Articles in this issue include:
- African transnational families: Cross‐country and gendered comparisons
- Engaged parenting, gender, and children's time use in transnational families: An assessment spanning three global regions
- Experiences of migration, parent–child interaction, and the life satisfaction of children in Ghana and China
- Transnational families and child migration to France and Spain. The role of family type and immigration policies
- Strategic actions of transnational migrant parents regarding birth registration for stay‐behind children in Lombok, Indonesia
- Linking the family context of migration during childhood to the well‐being of young adults: Evidence from the UK and France
- Sibling position, gender, and family networks in Mexican and Senegalese migration
