Migration and “skipped generation” households in Thailand

Abstract

© Oxford University Press 2018. All rights reserved. Many working-age adults in developing countries leave their homes for jobs to support their families and leave their children behind in the care of their own parents. This chapter focuses on these “skipped generation” households, in which grandparents live only with their grandchildren due to the migration of their adult children. The authors explore the experiences of caregivers, including how tasks and responsibilities are distributed within families, the nature of exchanges between grandparents and their adult children and between grandchildren and grandparents, and the ways in which “skipped generation” households cope with separation and the maintenance of family ties. The chapter examines how culturally grounded ethnotheories and religious concepts (i.e., karma and merit-making) factor into decisions to assume the caregiving role and considers the impact of this situation on the grandparents and the complexity of their experience.