Doctoral Dissertation Improvement Grant: Understanding the Consequences of Women's Migration for Family Health and Wellbeing in Nicaragua

University Of California-Los Angeles, Los Angeles CA

Investigators

Abstract

University of California, Los Angeles, doctoral student, Kristin E. Yarris, with the guidance of Dr. Linda C. Garro, will undertake ethnographic field research in Nicaragua to examine the impact of women's migration on families left behind. Women comprise an increasing proportion of Latin American migrants, leaving their home communities in search of economic and social opportunities elsewhere. This dissertation research project will assess how mother migration results in reconfigurations in household responsibilities, caregiving practices, and family relationships, and how these changes in turn nfluence family health and well-being outcomes. Given gendered expectations and cultural norms for women's roles in Latin American families, it is hypothesized that the migration of mothers and fathers will have differential effects on migrant-sending families. Using a naturally occurring case-comparison group design, the researcher will explore these gendered differences by studying households with migrant mothers and households with migrant fathers, as compared to households without migrant parents. The research involves multiple methods of data collection, including: household surveys, direct observations of everyday family life, in-depth ethnographic interviews with household heads, grandmothers, and children, and administration of standardized instruments for assessing physical and psychological health. These multiple sources of data will allow for a grounded ethnographic understanding of the lived experience and consequences of transnational migration from the perspective of families in Latin American sending communities, a population often overlooked in social science research on migration. This is singificant because only by understanding the gendered and generational dimensions of migration, particularly in relation to the impacts of migration on family health and wellbeing, can policy makers fully understanding why migrants may come to the United States and the consequences of their migration for those left behind. Funding this research also supports the education of a social scientist.