Myra Hamilton (University of New South Wales)

“Migration regulation, grandparent childcare and transnational family life in Australia and Canada”

Abstract
Today, grandparents are important providers of childcare while adult children participate in work and other activities. Internationally, research has begun to investigate grandparenting as a family practice and policy issue. Grandparent care also plays an important role in migrant families. In Australia for example, in 2017, almost one in five children with both parents born overseas, and almost one in four children with one parent born overseas, received care from a grandparent in a typical week. But the availability and character of grandparent childcare for migrant families is shaped by a country’s migration regime. Over the last few decades, in Australia and internationally, a tension has emerged in migration policies for ageing parents, between supporting families to build intergenerational relationships in close proximity, and limiting what is perceived to be the ‘economic burden’ associated with older migrants. The increasing recognition by policymakers of the importance of grandparent childcare for supporting the labour market participation of migrant mothers – in the context of international agendas to increase maternal labour market participation – has led to changes in the framing and formulation of migration policy for ageing parents in Australia and Canada. This paper provides a comparative analysis of migration policy for ageing parents in Australia and Canada in international context, and its implications for migrant families and grandparents.