‘Not Fit for Migration with Teenage Children’: Polish Transnational Immigrant Families in Ireland

Abstract

Transnational migration creates changes within family structures, impacting gender roles, socialization, and family dynamics. This chapter examines how, via a qualitative longitudinal sociological inquiry into the intergenerational dynamics of Polish immigrant families, migratory decisions and reunifications with those left behind are enacted and re-organized once affected by migration and separation. The findings indicate that separation exacerbates family ties, particularly for single mothers. Contemporary post-accession migration also shifts the power and changes the perception of conventional Polish gender roles towards more-visible equity. Sadly, female migration with teenage children is still seen as an unacceptable strategy. Lastly, technological advancement has created explicit opportunities to maintain relationships, yet narratives from Polish transnational families show difficulties in maintaining friendships and other impediments in operationalizing transnationalism at a distance.