Grand-parentalité et mobilité. Vieillissement et impact des migrations sur les relations intergénérationnelles en Indonésie

• Main Author: Laurence Husson
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: Université de Provence 2007-12-01
• Series: Moussons
• Subjects: Indonesia; the elderly; grandparents; demographic ageing; migration; feminization of labor
• Online Access: http://journals.openedition.org/moussons/1802

The world’s population is now ageing at a fast pace, and an increase in life expectancy by almost 25 years in the course of the 20th century has constituted a major disruption that governments in the South and social scientists alike have only started considering. Ageing is especially noteworthy in Asian countries, among others in Indonesia. The present article gives an overview of ageing in the Archipelago and a review of the few studies available to date, then it shows that migration is a family strategy, increasingly concerning women and often relying on the indispensable assistance of grandparents. Migration entails an extra load of work and responsibility for the elderly, who are already working hard and are largely autonomous. At an age when they could expect being taken care of by younger generations, they are the ones helping out their children and grandchildren. Through life histories, this article exposes the degree of satisfaction and dissatisfaction expressed by the ageing parents of migrants, thus contributing to grasp one of the social costs of migration, heretofore a poorly known one.