The Quality of Parent-Child Relationships in Transnational Families: Angolan and Nigerian Migrant Parents in The Netherlands

An increasing body of transnational family literature finds that transnational family life challenges relationships between migrant parents and their children in the home country. However, transnational families are not uniform and function differently according to their specific characteristics. The aim of this study is to investigate how different factors are associated with the quality of parent-child relationships in transnational families. Based on an extensive literature review, five factors are found to be of special importance: gender of the migrant parent; contact and remittances; characteristics of the caregiver; length of separation; and the age of the child and age at separation. There is no quantitative evidence on the relationship between these factors, and how parents assess the relationship with their child in the origin country. This study uses survey data collected among 131 Angolan and 134 Nigerian migrant parents in The Netherlands with children in the country of origin in order to analyse these factors simultaneously. The study finds that contact and a good relationship between migrant parent and caregiver are important factors associated with good transnational parent-child relationships. However, important differences are found between Angolans and Nigerians, attesting to the importance of the characteristics of a particular migratory flow.