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

加州大学洛杉矶分校的博士生克里斯汀·E·亚里斯将在琳达·C·加罗博士的指导下，在尼加拉瓜进行人种学实地研究，以考察妇女移徙对留守家庭的影响。妇女在拉丁美洲移民中所占比例越来越大，她们离开家乡社区到其他地方寻找经济和社会机会。这篇论文的研究项目将评估母亲迁移如何导致家庭责任、照顾实践和家庭关系的重新配置，以及这些变化如何反过来影响家庭健康和幸福结果。鉴于拉丁美洲家庭中对女性角色的性别期望和文化规范，假设母亲和父亲的移民将对移民家庭产生不同的影响。研究人员将使用自然发生的病例比较组设计，通过研究有移民母亲的家庭和有移民父亲的家庭与没有移民父母的家庭相比较，来探索这些性别差异。这项研究涉及多种数据收集方法，包括：家庭调查、对日常家庭生活的直接观察、对户主、祖母和儿童的深入人种学访谈，以及管理用于评估身心健康的标准化工具。这些多重数据来源将有助于从拉丁美洲派遣社区家庭的角度对跨国移民的生活经历和后果有一个扎实的人种学理解，而这一群体在关于移民的社会科学研究中往往被忽视。这一点意义重大，因为只有了解移民的性别和代际层面，特别是移民对家庭健康和福祉的影响，政策制定者才能充分了解移民可能来到美国的原因，以及移民对留在美国的人的影响。资助这项研究还支持社会科学家的教育。

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.