The impact of physical separation from parents on the mental wellbeing of the children of migrants

ABSTRACT

Much has been said about the harm children of migrants experience as a consequence of sequential family migration. Most of this literature discusses the case of children left behind. By contrast, this paper measures the cost in mental wellbeing (proxied by a composite index of non-specific psychological wellbeing) that children of migrant and native families suffer as a consequence of long periods of physical separation from their parents after family reunification. To do so, we use a unique dataset produced in the Municipality of Madrid in 2011, covering children in the 3rd and 4th grades (aged 13 to 15) of obligatory secondary education. Our evidence suggests that children who, as a consequence of family migration, have been separated from their parents from a period of at least three months, suffer a loss of mental wellbeing of a similar magnitude to that of native children upon parental divorce. In line with recent evidence from other European countries, we also find that the impact of parental divorce is almost negligible on immigrant origin children. Theoretical and policy implications of these findings are discussed.

KEYWORDS:

• Mental wellbeing
• family reunification
• family separation
• children of migrants

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Availability of data and materials

The datasets used during the current study are available from the corresponding author on reasonable request.

Notes

1 Most of these studies refer to the absence of fathers rather than mothers, which are a much less prevalent form of family structure.

2 This percentage refers to the entire secondary school, from 1st to 4th year; however, our survey was taken only to 3rd and 4th grade students.

3 According to the Statistical Office of the city of Madrid, at the end of 2009 (the most recent data available at the time of the sampling design) the composition by origin of the foreign-born population between 10 and 16 years old was distributed as follows: Ecuador, 33%; rest of Latin America, 33%; Romania, 7%; China, 4%; Morocco, 3%;, other countries, 20%. Obviously, the data do not perfectly match the distribution in our sample, among other reasons, because Chances 2011 also included second-generation children –for which no official statistical information was available at that time- and was restricted only to children enrolled in 3rd and 4th grade in 2011.

4 Note that the factorial analysis is conducted with the entire sample. Restricting the sample to those cases used in the analyses yields identical results (details available upon request).

Additional information

Funding

The 2011 Chances Dataset was collected with funding granted by the Spanish Research Council (Intramural Project 'Family dimensions of immigration in Europe. Possibilities for comparative research’ October 2008-December 2009) and Juan March Institute ('School performance and life-course expectations of immigrant and nonimmigrant youth in the city of Madrid’ 2011-2012). The Spanish Ministry of Economy and Competitiveness granted additional funding through the Project 'Aspirations, expectations and life-course expectations of immigrant and non-immigrant youth in Spain: Role of contextual factors and intergenerational conflicts’ (CSO2012-35234).