Transnational Intergenerational Relationships of German Emigrants: Frequency of Contacts and Financial Transfers

Maintaining social ties across borders is challenging and migration may affect family members’ capacity to intergenerational support. However, transnational intergenerational family relations of emigrants from the Global North have rarely been investigated yet. Our study assesses two core dimensions of intergenerational relationships—associational and functional solidarity—in recent emigrants from Germany. Our main analytic sample is derived from the German Emigration and Remigration Panel Study (GERPS), which we supplement with observations of non-emigrant ‘stayers’ from the German Family Panel (pairfam). The analysis revealed a pattern of intergenerational solidarity characterized by a high frequency of at least weekly contacts and predominantly downward flows of financial transfers. Similar to stayers, predictors of emigrants’ intergenerational relationship qualities confirm the importance of opportunity, need, family, and contextual-cultural structures. We conclude that there is no indication of fundamental differences between German emigrants and stayers with regard to their patterns of family cohesion.