Does your granny eat grass?' On mass migration, care drain and the fate of older people in rural Albania

Bibliographic Data

ID4263198
AuthorsJulie Vullnetari (0000-0003-1578-8622, University of Sussex), Russell King (0000-0001-6662-3305, University of Sussex)
Year2008
Volume8
Issue2
Pages139-171
Publication date2008-04-01
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenueGlobal Networks (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 1470-2266 • E-ISSN: 1471-0374
PublisherWiley (PUBLISHER • GB)
DOI10.1111/j.1471-0374.2008.00189.x
OpenAlexW2141759743
LanguageEN
Citations received60
References cited37

Older people have been the main social casualties of the collapse of the Albanian communist system and the ensuing mass emigration of younger generations since 1990. Some have had to forage for survival on a near-starvation diet, making broth from grass and weeds. For others, remittances from emigrant children ensure adequate material well-being, but a loss of locally-based trans-generational care and of intimate family relations occurs. Rates of emigration have been highest in the southern uplands, where our fieldwork took place. Migration has been mainly to Greece, but also to Italy and elsewhere. Interviews with elderly 'residual households' - single people and couples - reveal stories of loneliness and abandonment; cross-generational rupture of hitherto tight family structures is seen as emotionally painful because of the impossibility of enjoying mutual benefits of care sustained by geographical proximity. Profoundly upsetting is the denial of the practice of grand-parenting, which the older generation see as their raison d'être. Cost of travel, visa regimes and emigrants' irregular status conspire to prevent international visits. Finally, we examine various strategies of overcoming the 'care drain' produced by this situation, one of which is for older people to try to join their migrant children and grandchildren abroad

Abandonment (legal · Denial · Emigration · Intergenerational Family Dynamics and Caregiving · Migration and Labor Dynamics · Migration, Aging, and Tourism Studies

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