Child Indicators Research

https://doi.org/10.1007/s12187-023-10054-w

Subjective Well-being of Children Left Behind by Migrant

Parents in Six European Countries

Sergiu Bălțătescu1  · Tomasz Strózik2  · Kadri Soo3  · Dagmar Kutsar3  ·

Dorota Strózik4  · Claudia Bacter1

Accepted: 12 July 2023

© The Author(s) 2023

Abstract
This paper presents a cross-national comparison of the influence of parental migra-
tion on children’s subjective well-being (SWB). While studies often focus on the
economic implications of adult migration, research on its effects on children’s well-
being is scarce, particularly in Europe. Data from surveys of over 13,500 school
children in six European countries with a communist legacy were analysed. These
were collected as part of Children’s Worlds - The International Study of Children’s
Well-being (ISCWeB). The findings reveal that left-behind children generally have
lower levels of SWB than non-left-behind children, with girls being more affected,
and the gap in well-being increases with age. Left-behind status was also associated
with lower family and school satisfaction. A hierarchical logistic regression model
was used to explore the role of parental migration and family and school life satis-
faction in predicting high SWB of children. While including family and school life
satisfaction in the model weakened the association between parental migration and
child SWB, the models’ explanatory power improved. This study emphasizes the
need for further research in this area to better understand the complex dynamics be-
tween parental migration, children’s subjective well-being, and other factors. These
insights are essential for developing targeted interventions and policies to support
the well-being of left-behind children in migrant sending countries.

Keywords  Children’s Worlds · Parental migration · Children left behind · Post-

communist countries · Subjective well-being

Extended author information available on the last page of the article

1 3
 S. Bălțătescu et al.

1 Introduction

Migration is an enduring phenomenon with a historical lineage that spans across

centuries. Human populations have traversed geographical boundaries, impelled by
a diverse array of catalysts, encompassing both coercive factors prompting individu-
als to flee their countries of origin, such as armed conflicts and persecution, as well
as attractive forces that entice them towards their prospective host nations, such as
enhanced economic opportunities and elevated standards of living (Massey et al.,
1998; Migali et al., 2018; McAuliffe & Triandafyllidou, 2021).
It is estimated that more people today than ever before live outside their country of
birth. For example, according to Eurostat (2022), third-country nationals account for
5.3% of the EU population and, in addition, 13.7 million people living in EU Member
State are nationals of another EU Member State.
Given its magnitude, migration constitutes a subject of substantial discourse and
scholarly investigation across multiple academic disciplines. Predominantly, schol-
arly inquiries and reports pertaining to international migration tend to emphasize the
economic ramifications associated with adult migratory patterns and remittance flows
(Inglis et al., 2019). In this way, they are allocating comparatively limited attention
to the repercussions experienced by migrant families, particularly regarding children
who remain in their home countries (Council of Europe, 2020).
Children who are left behind in their home country while their parents migrate for
employment face the potential risk of increased levels of stress, anxiety, and other
emotional and psychological challenges (Chipea & Bălţătescu, 2010; Suárez-Orozco
et al., 2010; Cortina, 2014; Sun et al., 2015; Antia et al., 2020), although these out-
comes are not universally prevalent (Kutsar et al., 2014) and vary between boys
and girls (Cortina, 2014; Wu & Cebotari, 2018), and for children of different age
(Bălţătescu et al., 2014; Suárez-Orozco et al., 2010). Many studies imply that also
their educational results are affected (Wang, 2014; Van Luot et al., 2018; Marchetta
& Sim, 2021). Thus, we would expect that all these factors will influence in turn the
subjective well-being of children, an indicator of their global appreciation of their
lives (Casas & Frønes, 2020).
Consequently, it becomes imperative to intensify our attention and delve deeper
into this matter, aiming to comprehend the ramifications it poses for the overall well-
being of children residing within transnational families. Of particular interest for us
is to test cross-nationally how variables such as gender, age and material depriva-
tion are correlated with the subjective well-being of children left behind, and how
satisfaction with school and family life are also independent predictors of this target
variable.
In the following, we will review the positive and negative effects of parental
migration on children left behind, exploring the impact on their subjective well-
being and examining international perspectives. The second chapter will outline the
methodology employed, including sample characteristics, measures used, and data
analysis techniques. Moving on to the findings, we will compare parental migra-
tion patterns across different countries, examine variations in subjective well-being,
material deprivation, family and school life satisfaction among children left behind,
and explore the associations between parental migration and subjective well-being.

1 3
Subjective Well-being of Children Left Behind by Migrant Parents in Six…

Finally, in the discussion and conclusions section, we will interpret the findings, dis-
cuss their implications, highlight limitations, and suggest areas for future research.

1.1  Migration of Parents: Positive and Negative Effects on Children Left Home

Migration for work purposes, both internally (nationally) or externally (transnation-

ally), in which one or both parents leave their children at home, has been widely stud-
ied, revealing various reasons for the so-called ‘children left behind’ phenomenon.
Often, this is due to the lack of documents of children, or sometimes of the whole
families in the process of migration (Marcus et al., 2023). Sometimes parents want
to avoid exposing their children to racism and discrimination in the destination coun-
tries (Ozyegin & Hondagneu-Sotelo, 2008). Work visas often forbid migrants from
moving with their families and obtaining visitor visas for kids might be challenging.
Additionally, parents’ time and ability to care for their children in the destination
country may be limited (UNICEF, 2020). Parents may also be concerned about the
safety and educational achievement of their children, or even about the well-being of
left alone grandparents. The first pattern of migration is when parents expect reunifi-
cation in the destination country - although this can take years or could never be real-
ized. A second pattern is when parents expect to come back after a time and may not
see the need to move their children to the destination country (Marcus et al., 2023).
As a result, children are often left in the care of a remaining parent (in most cases
the mother), a grandparent, aunt, or other relative (Artico, 2003). The care arrange-
ments are dependent on the parent who is abroad: in many cases fathers with children
left in care seek help from relatives or friends (Hoang et al., 2015). Estimates of the
number of children left behind are rare and rather unreliable. For example, according
to the National Authority for Child Protection and Adoption in Romania, the num-
ber of children whose parents were away working abroad amounts to approximately
1.9% (ANPDCA Romania, 2023), a magnitude deemed unrealistically low by the
NGOs working in the field. Much higher levels are estimated in Philippines and Kyr-
gyzstan (27%, respectively 10% with at least one parent leaving abroad) (UNICEF,
2020). As per investigations documented in a compendium on women’s migration
in Europe, between 60 and 100% of the women interviewed by different contribu-
tors in destination countries had left their children behind (Lutz, 2008). The policy
responses to this phenomenon range from completely ignoring it to recognizing that
children are being deprived of fundamental protection, care, and assistance. The rap-
porteur for the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe concludes in an
official document that “leaving millions of children without parental care is a mass
violation of human rights” (Council of Europe, 2020).
The effects of parental migration on children can usually be divided into two cat-
egories: positive and negative. The better access to resources that the migrant fam-
ily has is typically linked to favourable outcomes, resulting in more money for the
family through remittances, which can relieve financial pressure on family members
in the home nation or region. The income effect can enable greater investments in
healthcare and education and open new options for business investment (Démurger,
2015). Thus, children of emigrants have improved financial conditions and gain
higher status than their non-emigrant classmates.

1 3
 S. Bălțătescu et al.

While a family’s financial capital may vary, it also gains from the social capital
built through social networks during the move process. We are dealing with a culture
of migration, which has turned into a significant source of social capital, which trans-
fers from parents to children, claims Dreby (2007) regarding migration from Mexico
to the United States.
Some studies in Asia focus on the positive relationship that migration of parents
has with the resilience of children. Despite absence of one or two parents, their school
performance and school enjoyment are not affected, at least if their mothers are not
absent for longer times (Jampaklay & Vapattanawong, 2013; Jordan & Graham,
2012). These findings are consistent with certain results showing that in terms of
child schooling (Yang, 2008), academic performance (Botezat & Pfeiffer, 2014), and
even academic aspirations (Shen & Zhang, 2018), the benefits of migration (mostly
by fathers) appear to outweigh the disadvantages of parental absence.
The line of demarcation between positive and negative effects crosses mostly the
field of education. Additional research that examined the detrimental effects of paren-
tal absence discovered that parental migration reduces school enrolment (Wang,
2014), increases the likelihood of a child dropping out of school (Marchetta & Sim,
2021), and has a negative effect on their objective (Song et al., 2018) and subjective
(Van Luot et al., 2018) academic achievement.
Some of the most important negative effects are also those related to health. Over-
all, children who were left behind had considerably worse health-related quality of
life than other children (Racaite et al., 2019). Physical health problems such as infec-
tious disease, underweight, anaemia or overweight have been found to be present in
equal measure or even less frequent in a meta-analysis on conditions of children left
behind (Fellmeth et al., 2018). Both this literature review and a second one (Antia et
al., 2020) revealed, however, that these children face an increased risk of develop-
ing mental health problems such as depressive disorder, anxiety disorder, conduct
disorders, suicidal ideation, and substance use. Children feel abandoned and rejected,
exhibiting symptoms of losing a loved one. This is why in the literature the psycho-
logical effects are considered like those of parent’s divorce, and as Cortina (2014, pp.
3–4) observes, children display “higher levels of externalizing behaviours (disrup-
tive, hyperactive and aggressive behaviours) and internalizing problems (withdrawn,
anxious, inhibited and depressed behaviours)”.
Assessing the causal relationship between being left alone and many of these con-
ditions raises endogeneity problems. This is primarily due to the omission of vari-
ables that are related to both the decision to migrate and the experiences of family
members who remain behind (Démurger, 2015). For example, in the case of severe
couple disagreements, the decision to migrate of one parent masks the imminent
dissolution of the family. Moreover, the relationship between migration and child
well-being outcomes is dynamic and dependent on a variety of factors, making it dif-
ficult to clearly categorize potential effects on child well-being as positive or negative
(Gassmann et al., 2018).
However, it is worth noting that all the effects attributed to children being left
behind are linked to their subjective well-being, which will be further explored in the
next section of this paper.

1 3
Subjective Well-being of Children Left Behind by Migrant Parents in Six…

1.2  Subjective Wellbeing of Children Left Behind

1.2.1  Concept and Usefulness

Subjective well-being is the extent to which a person has a favourable assessment

of the overall quality of his/her life (Veenhoven, 1984). This assessment is made by
the individual, with cognitive (satisfaction with life) or affective (positive and nega-
tive affect) devices. Diener (1984) highlights that it is subjective in the sense that it
depends on the individual’s experience, it comprises a broad evaluation rather than
just a focused evaluation of one area of life, and it encompasses both positive actions
and the lack of harmful ones.
While, based on these theoretical bases, the literature on adult subjective well-
being exploded since the 1980’s, the traditional approach to child well-being remained
focused on objective indicators such as mortality rates, malnutrition, immunization
rates, disease rates, etc. and the happiness of children and adolescents is still regarded
as unimportant (Casas, 2011). However, since the beginning of 21st century, remark-
able progresses in this area have been made by recognizing the children’s subjective
perspectives, accepting them as a unit of observation and systematically gathering
children’s data (Ben-Arieh, 2008).
Thus, research on the subjective well-being of children left behind is very useful.
Cortina (2014) stresses the need for a deeper understanding of key assumptions to
analyse the effects of migration on those left behind, such as whether remittances
boost life satisfaction. Subjective indicators, he argues, are used in conjunction with
other well-being statistics, but excluding subjective variables from well-being assess-
ments may skew policymakers’ assumptions, an approach that Allardt (1993, p. 93)
would name “the undue dogmatism resulting from the use of objective indicators
only”. This is also a way to overcome the critique that the negative effects of parental
migration are overestimated, giving the propensity of the studies to focus exclusively
on the emotional effects while ignoring the significance of the economic factors or
those linked with personal development, social adjustment, or resilience (Cojocaru
et al., 2015). The influence of most of these factors, even those that are difficult to
measure, is summarized by the subjective well-being of children, which reflects their
evaluation of the objective conditions of their lives.

1.2.2  Comparative Levels

Most studies conclude that being left behind is detrimental to children’s subjective
well-being. Using data from a survey in Romania, within a random sample of 1811
high school students grades 10–12, Bălţătescu (2008) found that having both parents
abroad is correlated with life satisfaction, when controlling for grade, gender, mate-
rial endowment, father’s education, parental control, and satisfaction with school.
Results are confirmed on a Romanian national representative sample survey of 10 to
13 years-old students (n = 2868): children with the lowest SWB are those with both
parents abroad, and the effect of mother going abroad is almost as detrimental as
having both parents abroad (Bălţătescu et al., 2014). This is linked with gender roles,
conclude Kutsar et al. (2014) when, using a projective technique, found that children

1 3
 S. Bălțătescu et al.

in Estonia displayed stereotypical attitudes towards gender labour division. When

asked to describe the emotions involved with being left behind, 72% of children in
the same sample said that such children would feel sad and 58% that they would
feel unhappy. Graham et al. (2012) also found that children with migrant parents are
unhappier, while Cortina (2014) discovered that life satisfaction (measured using the
BMSLSS scale - Seligson et al., 2003) of children with at least one migrant parent
from Quito and Tirana is significantly lower than that of those who live with both
parents.
A series of papers investigates the life satisfaction of left behind children in rural
China. Su et al. (2013) found that children with two parents migrating reported the
lowest level of satisfaction. In a longitudinal study in the same province, being left
alone at the time of the first wave was found to decrease life satisfaction and happi-
ness of children reported in the second wave, which took place after six months (Su et
al., 2017). Self-reported happiness in the previous year was also found to be lower in
rural Chinese children (Fan & Fan, 2021). According to a study conducted in another
Chinese region, the life satisfaction of left-behind children is lower, which the authors
attributed to the absence of parental care (Song et al., 2018). Shen and Zhang (2018)
also found that children from both-parent migrant families report much lower levels
of happiness and confidence in the future than children co-residing with both parents.
They name the migration “a double edge sword”, giving that children’s aspirations to
attend college are increased by father-only migration, even more so than the positive
effects of parental education and family income. Comparative research in China and
Ghana yielded the same results for both countries (Wu & Cebotari, 2018). A single
study in rural China failed to detect any statistically significant differences in positive
affect, negative affect, and life satisfaction between left-behind and non-left behind
children (Ye et al., 2020); however, the authors admit that compared to other catego-
ries of parental migration status, children whose mothers were migrants had the most
significantly lower SWB scores.
Various factors moderate the relationship between the left-behind status of chil-
dren and their subjective well-being. Among the demographic variables, the focus
was on the gender, age, and material resources of the family.

1.2.3 Gender

The gender effect was negative for girls in rural China, Wu and Cebotari (2018)
observing that they consistently reported lower levels of life satisfaction than their
peers in non-migrant households without a migration history, irrespective of their
own migration experiences, which may be linked to the subordinate status of girls in
Chinese families. Cortina (2014) identified a deficit in the same direction in Tirana,
but in opposite direction in Quito. Meanwhile, another study in China found “margin-
ally significant gender differences” (Song et al., 2018). While the evidence is barely
conclusive, it seems that girls are more emotionally affected by the leave of their par-
ents, thus leading to depression (Robila, 2011). Children feel insecure because of the
lack of parent availability when needed. Moreover, parents do not inform them about
the duration of their absence. Thus, they lack confidence in the stability of the family

1 3
Subjective Well-being of Children Left Behind by Migrant Parents in Six…

(Kutsar et al., 2014). Those in the rural areas may also be affected by an increased
household workload (Song et al., 2018).

1.2.4 Age

Bălţătescu et al. (2014) found that the relationship between left-behind status and
subjective well-being is weaker for 12–13 years old compared to 10–11 years old,
which would be explained by a process of adaptation of children to their situation
(Suárez-Orozco et al., 2010). Cortina (2014, p. 9) also estimates that the gap in sat-
isfaction between left behind children and the rest of the children seems to reduce
with age. Older children may be less affected emotionally because they enjoy, among
others, more independent decision-making and spend more time with friends than
younger children (Kutsar et al., 2014).

1.2.5  Material Goods

Jordan and Graham (2012) found “no direct evidence of a moderating relation
between social and migration status”, with respect to resilience (which they mea-
sure as life satisfaction and enjoyment of school). Similarly, Bălțătescu et al. (2014)
found a very weak path between being left behind, satisfaction with material situa-
tion of the family and subjective well-being. Cortina (2014), while acknowledging
the importance of remittances on objective well-being indicators such as access to
education, health and food, found that the children’s satisfaction with their lives is
not statistically impacted by remittance-related spending for food, toys, health care,
or education, either combined or separately. This concords with the conclusions of
his qualitative study that “even though families, children and adolescents left behind
may benefit from remittances, these funds do not compensate for the absence of the
father, mother or both” (p. 10).

1.2.6 Family

When children are left behind and their relationships with primary caregivers (either
parents or relatives) are strong and trusting, they may be able to cope with the dif-
ficulties brought on by extended parent-child separation and meet their basic psy-
chological needs, which will increase their subjective well-being (Chai et al., 2019;
Gao et al., 2022). In China and Ghana, children who interacted with their migrant
parents frequently reported higher levels of life satisfaction and self-esteem, as well
as decreased loneliness and sadness (Sun et al., 2015). Higher life satisfaction was
also linked to stronger parental support in Romania (Robila, 2011), China, and Ghana
(Wu & Cebotari, 2018). However, higher monitoring from parents was found to rather
decrease life satisfaction (Robila, 2011; Wu & Cebotari, 2018). Family satisfaction
serves as an indicator that encompasses these sometimes-contradictory influences. It
is generally lower for children left behind by migrant parents (Bălţătescu et al., 2014;
Ye et al., 2020). In a path model both parents being abroad influence satisfaction with
life negatively directly, but also through satisfaction with family life and with the

1 3
 S. Bălțătescu et al.

school marks. The effect is significantly weaker in sixth graders compared to fourth
graders (Bălţătescu et al., 2014).

1.2.7 School

The school effects of being left alone were typically assessed through more objec-
tively oriented indicators, such as school performance and dropout rates. Neverthe-
less, there are also reports of its impact on students’ school satisfaction. Jordan and
Graham (2012) found that school enjoyment in Indonesia, the Philippines, and Viet-
nam was not affected. Similarly, results in urban China showed that students who
stayed behind displayed similar levels of academic satisfaction to those whose par-
ents did not migrate (Lan & Moscardino, 2019). In contrast, a longitudinal study con-
ducted by Su et al. (2017) in rural China revealed that, after controlling for important
demographic factors and parental migration characteristics in the previous survey
wave (six months before), being left behind was associated with lower levels of sat-
isfaction with schooling.

1.3  International Perspectives

A considerable number of studies examining the well-being of children left behind

originate from countries with significant immigration patterns situated in Central and
South America, as well as in Asia. Such research is less common in Europe’s newest
countries of immigration. However, the new member nations of the European Union
have seen a major rise in labour migration, particularly since the EU’s expansion
(Kutsar et al., 2014). In this part, we will provide a concise overview of the research
findings, statistics, and policies pertaining to each of the six countries included in
our study. All these countries participated in the third wave of the Children’s Worlds
Study (ISCWeB) and shared a common legacy of communist rule until the late 1980s
and early 1990s. Following the collapse of communism, primarily due to economic
circumstances, emigration from these countries experienced a substantial surge. This
trend has persisted over the past two decades, as evidenced by data from the United
Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs (UNDESA) (Table 1). The high-
est levels are found in Albania (with an increase from 20.9% in 2000 to 30.3% in
2020), Croatia (from 17% to 20.2%), and Romania (from 4.9% to 17.2%). The coun-
tries with the lowest percentual migration stock among the six included in our study
are Hungary (from 4% to 6.9%), Poland (from 5% to 11.3%) and Estonia (from 9.2%

Table 1  International migrant Migrant stock % of total

stock (in thousands) by country population
of origin, years 2000 & 2020
2000 2020 2000 2020
Albania 824.4 1 250.4 20.9 30.3
Croatia 907.0 1 039.5 17.0 20.2
Estonia 141.8 206.6 9.2 13.5
Hungary 421.0 714.4 4.0 6.9
Poland 2 047.6 4 825.1 5.0 11.3
Source: UNDESA, 2020,
personal calculations Romania 1 138.8 3 987.1 4.9 17.2

1 3
Subjective Well-being of Children Left Behind by Migrant Parents in Six…

to 13.5%). For reference, in Europe (excluding Russia), the share of migrant stock
increased from 6.3% to 8% in the comparable period.

1.3.1 Albania

Since the fall of the communism in 1991, Albania has experienced one of the highest
relative population exoduses, and was called „a laboratory for the study of migra-
tion” (King, 2005). Political instability, economic, demographic, and cultural causes
contributed to the increase in the number of people who left the country. Lack of
perspective and problems related to children’s education were also important factors
(Gëdeshi & King, 2018). According to measurements of the ratio between migrants
and the population, Albania has experienced the highest wave of immigration in all
of Europe (Government of Albania, 2018). 829,200 Albanian citizens were registered
in 2020 with valid residence permits in EU countries (Eurostat, 2023). Giannelli and
Mangiavacchi (2010), who studied the long-term effects on the schooling of children
whose parents were out of the country during their development, drew attention to the
psychological implications of this situation. Moreover, the responsibilities that chil-
dren assume within the family reduce the time allocated to education, thus leading to
an increase in the school dropout rate, especially in the case of girls.
The public policy recommendations regarding the improvement of the situation
aim at economic changes, which contribute to increasing the well-being of the popu-
lation, but also measures that facilitate the return to the country of those who have left
(Gëdeshi & King, 2018; Government of Albania, 2018).

1.3.2 Croatia

In 2021, 40,424 people migrated out of Croatia, the top destination countries being
Germany (32.1%), Bosnia and Herzegovina (16.2%), Serbia (9.8%), Austria (8.4%),
and Kosovo (4.2%). The most significant number of people who migrated abroad
were aged between 20 and 39 years old. Croatia’s entry into the European Union
marked a turning point in this phenomenon, with Germany and Austria becoming
preferred destinations for Croatian migrants. The main push factors are the decline in
living standards, fall of overall employment rates, difficulty to find a permanent job
in the profession, and a general dissatisfaction with the country, and the perception of
an uncertain future in Croatia. Germany has lifted restrictions on the free movement
of labour and provided services geared to Croatian citizens. Remittances amounted
to 5,044,681.50 USD in 2021, representing 7.3% of Croatia’s GDP (Integral Human
Development, 2023). Despite the high level of migration, the studies on children left
behind are rare, and mostly linked with the problem of forced migration caused by
the Balkan war circumstances (1992–1993). A study conducted in Zagreb schools
comparing the academic performance of migrant children revealed that those with
parents living abroad face greater educational challenges, even if they remained in
the same school and environment, compared to their peers who did not have migrant
parents and had no experience with migration (IMIN, 2021).

1 3
 S. Bălțătescu et al.

1.3.3 Estonia

Working abroad is more widespread among the population of Estonia than is the
average for Europe. Estonia’s accession to the European Union in 2004 has signifi-
cantly influenced emigration from this country, due to disappearance of borders and
the opening of the employment markets of other societies. However, work migration
experienced a significant surge following the onset of the economic crisis in 2008.
During this period, over two thousand Estonian residents sought employment and
better income abroad, positioning Estonia as one of the prominent countries of ori-
gin for migrant workers in Europe (Krusell, 2015; Nerb et al., 2009). According to
the Estonian Labour Force Survey, the share of employed people in Estonia whose
main job was abroad was the highest in 2010–2012 (around 7%) and then slowly
decreased, remaining at 3% by 2021 (Statistics Estonia, 2022). Men and younger
middle-aged people dominated among the migrant workers (Krusell, 2009). The data
from European Social Survey conducted in 2021 indicates that people with under-
aged children are more likely to have worked abroad in the last ten years than people
who do not have minors (authors’ calculation). Most often the job emigrants are
fathers, while mothers stay with children in the homeland. For years by now, the main
destination of the migration by job for men has been Finland because of higher salary
level there compared to Estonia, its geographical closeness, language similarity and
job vacancies in the construction sector.

1.3.4 Hungary

Based on the European Social Survey in 2021, 5.6% of Hungarians had worked in
another country for more than 6 months during the last ten years (authors’ calcula-
tion). According to a recent survey, about 40% of Hungarians agreed that the main
reason for people wanting to move abroad were the low salaries (Republikon Intézet,
2022). However, about a third agreed that the state of democracy in the country was
also a significant reason behind emigration. Their primary destinations were other
EU member states. In 2022, 26,500 Hungarian citizens emigrated, most often to Aus-
tria, Germany and the UK. Among them, about 15 thousand were men and 11 thou-
sand were women (Hungarian Central Statistical Office, 2023). Similar to Estonia, in
Hungary, fathers tend to migrate for work more frequently than mothers. Addition-
ally, job-related migration has a greater impact on children from two-parent families
compared to those living in single-parent households. Approximately 22 thousand
children are potentially affected by the consequences of parental migration (Blaskó
& Szabó, 2016).

1.3.5 Poland

The migration of Poles is not a new phenomenon. The country has a long history
of economic and political emigration, dating back to the 19th century and linked to
changes in Polish statehood. The last major wave of emigration took place at the end
of the first decade of the 21st century and was linked to Poland’s accession to the
European Union in 2004. The opening up of many European labour markets, com-

1 3
Subjective Well-being of Children Left Behind by Migrant Parents in Six…

bined with Poland’s high (youth) unemployment rate at the time, resulted in many
Poles finding employment in Western and Northern Europe (Matyjas, 2017).
The Statistics Poland (GUS) recorded more than 300,000 documented cases of
permanent emigration to European countries between 2004 and 2020. At the same
time, by the end of 2020, around 2,239 thousand permanent residents of Poland tem-
porarily stayed outside the country (Statistics Poland, 2021). Currently, according to
estimates made by the International Organisation for Migration (IOM), over 4.8 mil-
lion Poles live abroad, which is more than 11% of the total population of the country.
This means that Poland has the largest (next to Romania and the UK) emigrant popu-
lation in Europe (McAuliffe & Triandafyllidou, 2021).
Such a scale of the migration phenomenon in Poland puts it in the spotlight of
the media, state institutions, and researchers. Attempts are being made to assess the
consequences of foreign migration in demographic, economic, and social terms both
at the macro and the micro level (Puzio-Wacławik, 2010; Zieniuk-Cupryn, 2016).
Many studies and reports are devoted to migrant families and especially to children
raised in such families (Dąbrowska & Szumilas, 2017; Danilewicz, 2012; Ostrowska,
2017; Walczak, 2008, 2014). Children whose one or two parents have gone abroad
for work are often referred to in the literature as Euro-orphans (Brągiel, 2013). This
term, although it highlights the negative socio-educational consequences of parental
migration, is pejorative and stigmatizing. Not every migrant family can be consid-
ered dysfunctional, and the impact of this phenomenon on child development and
well-being is more complex (Gizicka, 2010).

1.3.6 Romania

Romania is one of the countries with a long history of migration, especially in the last
60 years. Most changes occurred after 1989, when the nature of migration changed.
If during Communism there were few categories of the population that made such a
decision, now anyone who wanted had the freedom to take this step (Horváth & Ang-
hel, 2009). Thus, more and more people chose to leave the country, the economic sit-
uation and the social, administrative, education and health problems being the most
important contributors to the immigration decision. When in 2007 Romania entered
European Union, the improvement of migrants’ rights in European destination coun-
tries accelerated the process. As a result, Romania, along with the Russian Federa-
tion, Ukraine, and Poland, was listed among the Eastern European countries with the
largest populations of emigrants in the region. In 2020, Romania ranked 14th among
the world top 20 countries of origin for migrants, with 3.98 million citizens abroad
representing 17.1% of the total population (McAuliffe & Triandafyllidou, 2021).
Since 2006, the issue of children left behind has gained public attention due to
alarming cases highlighted by the media, depicting instances of severe abuse and
neglect experienced by vulnerable children under the care of entrusted adults. Par-
ticularly distressing were incidents involving child suicides. In response to these con-
cerns, legislation was enacted requiring parents migrating abroad to disclose their
circumstances to local councils. Moreover, a monitoring mechanism was established
in collaboration with local social work services, with the National Authority for Child
Protection periodically reporting relevant statistics. Several qualitative and quantita-

1 3
 S. Bălțătescu et al.

tive studies were carried out (Irimescu & Lupu, 2006; Chipea & Iacob, 2010; Toth et
al., 2007) and textbooks for intervention were designed (Cojocaru et al., 2006; Luca
et al., 2009). However official figures are obviously underestimated, mainly because
few parents declared their departure abroad, while the social work institutions were
found not to be sufficiently involved in prevention of dysfunctional effects on chil-
dren (see for a review of all these topics Chipea and Bălţătescu, 2010).
The aim of the present paper is a cross-national comparison of the influence of
parental migration on children’s subjective well-being in six European countries with
a communist legacy and a history of migration after 1990s: Albania, Croatia, Estonia,
Hungary, Poland and Romania. It seeks finding answers to the following research
questions:

1. What are the comparative levels of subjective well-being (SWB) of children left
behind (LBC) in these countries?
2. How gender, age and material deprivation affect the subjective well-being of
children left behind?
3. How the migration of parents is correlated with the satisfaction with school and
family life and how these variables predict, when controlling for demographics,
the subjective well-being of children left behind?

2 Methods

2.1  Sample Characteristics

This study draws upon data from the six above-mentioned post-communist countries
collected during the third wave of The Children’s Worlds: International Survey of
Children’s Well-Being (ISCWeb), an innovative worldwide research endeavour that
seeks to gather reliable and inclusive information about the lives and everyday expe-
riences of children. The study focuses on various aspects, such as children’s routines,
time allocation, and most importantly, their personal perspectives and assessments
of their own well-being in diverse cultural contexts. The current research is based
on data from the third and largest wave of data collection, which was conducted
between 2016 and 2019 in 40 countries from five continents. The survey was based
on self-completed questionnaires asking children in mainstream schools about their
feelings and satisfaction with various aspects of their lives. The study was conducted
by national research teams with the ethical approval from the relevant committee
(Rees et al., 2020). To ensure the representativeness of the survey in each country
(or specific region), appropriate individual sampling strategies were developed and
approved by an international team of experts.
Items on parental migration, which were essential to the analysis of the current
study, were included in the questionnaires of over 20 countries. However, the sam-
ple of countries in the present study was limited to six countries: Albania, Croa-
tia, Estonia, Hungary, Poland, and Romania. These societies, distributed in Central,
Eastern, and Southern Europe, have communist legacies. After the fall of commu-
nism, all these countries have undergone significant transitional changes, resulting

1 3
Subjective Well-being of Children Left Behind by Migrant Parents in Six…

Table 2  Sample size and distri- Number Boys Girls 10 years 12

bution of participants by gender of cases old years
and age group, by country old
Albania 2207 50.1% 49.9% 50.3% 49.7%
Croatia 2323 49.5% 50.5% 51.8% 48.2%
Estonia 2041 48.5% 51.5% 48.4% 51.6%
Hungary 2001 47.8% 52.2% 51.0% 49.0%
Poland 2280 49.3% 50.7% 50.8% 49.2%
Romania 2350 49.3% 50.7% 52.0% 48.0%

Table 3  Percentage of children None Father only Mother only Both parents
with migrating parents, by
Albania 76.7% 19.9% 1.0% 2.6%
country
Croatia 88.5% 9.9% 1.1% 0.6%
Estonia 80.4% 16.9% 1.9% 0.7%
Hungary 88.3% 10.0% 1.2% 0.3%
Poland 85.2% 12.6% 1.5% 0.8%
Romania 72.2% 17.0% 4.8% 5.9%

in higher levels of unemployment and economic uncertainty, which have contrib-

uted to increased levels of emigration. Joining European Union (in 2004 and 2007)
offered their citizens (apart from those in Albania) legal access to the job market, thus
increasing even more the number of those migrating.
The initial sample of the study included 13,589 children aged 10 and 12 years from
these six countries. Owing to a lack of information on parental migration, 387 (2.8%)
children were not included in the current study. The final sample consisted of 13,203
children, with sample sizes per country ranging from 2,001 children in Hungary to
2,350 children in Romania. The description of the sample is presented in Table 2.

2.2 Measures

2.2.1  Parental Migration

Two questions were used to identify the children from migrant families. The children
were asked whether their mother (1) or father (2) had lived or worked abroad for
more than one month in the past year.
Considering the pooled sample, almost 4% of the respondents reported that their
mothers had gone to work in another country in the last 12 months. The experience of
separation from the father was more common, affecting more than 16% of children.
The two rates do not add up because some children experienced both parents going
abroad for work (simultaneously or alternately). Thus, 18.2% of children experienced
separation from at least one parent. The distribution of children who experienced
parental migration in each country is shown in Table 3 and discussed in Sect. 3.1.

1 3
 S. Bălțătescu et al.

2.2.2  Subjective Well-being

The Children’s Worlds Subjective Well-Being Scale (CW-SWBS) was used to explore
the children SWB. This measure was designed based on the Students’ Life Satisfac-
tion Scale (Huebner, 1991) to improve the cross-cultural comparability of the results
of the third wave of the Children’s Worlds study. This context-free psychometric
scale was based on five statements about children’s overall well-being: “I enjoy my
life”, “My life is going well”, “I have a good life”, “The things that happen in my life
are excellent”, “I am happy with my life” and is the most recommended SWB scale
for cross-country comparative studies (Casas & González-Carrasco, 2021).
The children aged 10 and 12 responded to the questions using an 11-point scale
ranging from “Not at all agree” to “Totally agree”. The internal consistency of the
CW-SWBS measured with Cronbach’s α, was 0.934 for the pooled sample and
ranged, depending on the country, from 0.816 for Albania to 0.945 for Estonia. The
five items were summed, and following the recommendations of the ISCWeB, the
sum was multiplied by 2 to create a scale from 0 to 100. A higher value of the CW-
SWBS indicates a greater level of well-being.

2.2.3  Material Deprivation

Children’s family material deprivation was measured through a set of eight ques-
tions about their access to or possession of items such as, for example, clothes and
shoes in good condition, enough money for school trips, internet at home, equipment
for sports and hobbies, pocket money, or a mobile phone. The material deprivation
index, based on the approach proposed by Main and Bradshaw (2012), was calcu-
lated by adding up the number of items that children lacked from zero to eight.

2.2.4  Family Life and School Life Satisfaction

Children’s family-related satisfaction was measured with the question “How satis-
fied are you with the people you live with?”, whereas their school life satisfaction
was based on the question “How satisfied are you with your life as a student?”. Both
questions were on an 11-point satisfaction scale ranging from “Not at all satisfied to
“Totally satisfied”.

2.3  Data Analysis

The first part of the analysis presents descriptive statistics on children’s general life
assessment (CW-SWBS), parental migration, material deprivation, and satisfaction
with family and school. Due to the non-normal distribution of the independent vari-
able, the relationships between the CW-SWBS and the independent variables were
examined in more detail using the nonparametric Mann-Whitney U test. For the same
reason, hierarchical logistic regressions were then performed to predict subjective
well-being separately for each country. Since the mean scores of the CW-SWBS were
strongly biased towards positive values, the index had been dichotomized. Previous
approaches using Children’s Worlds data recommended that at least a 75 − 25 ratio to

1 3
Subjective Well-being of Children Left Behind by Migrant Parents in Six…

be used for determining cut-off points (Rees, 2019). In our case, we chose those chil-
dren scoring 80 or more points (out of 100) to be classified into the group with high
well-being. In the first step, parental migration, family material deprivation, and age
group and gender as dummy variables were entered in the models. Then, satisfaction
with family members and satisfaction with life as a student were added to find out the
persistence of the effects of parental migration.

3 Findings

3.1  A Comparison of Parental Migration, by Country

Table 3 shows the structure of children who experienced separation from their parents
for each of the countries analysed. In two countries - Croatia and Hungary - less than
12% of children reported that at least one of their parents had recently left abroad to
work, while in Romania and Albania, such children were 27.8% and 23.3%, respec-
tively. Fathers’ migration prevailed in all six countries. The share of children indi-
cating that only their fathers had migrated for work ranged from 19.9% in Albania
to 9.9% in Hungary. In Albania, on the other hand, fathers accounted for the largest
share (96%) of all migrating parents. The highest proportion of children with experi-
ence of only maternal migration was observed in Romania (4.8%), and this was more
than four times higher than, for example, in Poland and Estonia. Romania also had
the highest number of children who experienced migration from both parents.

3.2  Variations in SWB, Material Deprivation, Family and School Life Satisfaction

Table 4 presents the differences between countries in terms of children’s subjective

well-being. Children from Albania and Romania had the highest mean scores on the
CW-SWBS scale. Some 92–96% of children from these countries rated their overall
well-being at a high level. At the opposite end of the spectrum in this aspect were
countries such as Estonia and Poland, where less than 75% of children evaluated their
lives very positively.
The highest scores for family life satisfaction were observed in Albania, Romania,
and Croatia (see Table 5). The same three countries stood out in terms of the highest
level of school life satisfaction. It is worth emphasizing that, in all surveyed coun-

Table 4  Arithmetic mean, stan- CW-SWBS (range: 0-100)

dard deviation (SD) and share
Mean SD High
of children evaluating their sub-
satis-
jective well-being (CW-SWBS)
faction,
at a high level (80 or more on
%
0-100 scale), by country
Albania 96.2 9.0 96.4
Croatia 89.6 16.2 83.9
Estonia 84.0 20.1 73.5
Hungary 89.0 16.0 83.2
Poland 84.4 21.0 74.5
Romania 94.1 12.1 92.4

1 3
 S. Bălțătescu et al.

Table 5  Mean and standard Family life School life Material

deviations (in brackets) for satisfaction satisfaction deprivation
family life satisfaction, school (range: 0 to 10) (range: 0 to 10) (range: 0
life satisfaction and material to 8)
deprivation, by country
Albania 9.8 (1.0) 9.7 (1.0) 0.83 (1.24)
Croatia 9.5 (1.2) 8.2 (2.2) 0.41 (0.75)
Estonia 9.1 (1.5) 7.9 (2.3) 0.33 (0.78)
Hungary 9.4 (1.2) 7.3 (2.3) 0.25 (0.66)
Poland 9.1 (1.7) 7.6 (2.5) 0.52 (0.89)
Romania 9.5 (1.4) 8.8 (1.7) 0.59 (1.33)

Table 6  Average subjective None At least Father Mother

well-being (CW-SWBS, range: one or both or both
0-100) and parental migration, parent
by country
Albania 96.3 96.0 96.1 93.4*
Croatia 89.8 88.4 88.6 87.2*
Estonia 84.7 80.5** 81.2* 73.4***
Note: * indicates p < .05; **
indicates p < .01, *** indicates Hungary 89.4 86.7* 87.1* 84.6
p < .001, Poland 85.4 79.3*** 79.2*** 75.8
‘None’ as reference category Romania 94.9 92.1*** 92.2*** 90.7**

tries, the average scores of children’s satisfaction with the people they lived with
were higher than the average level of satisfaction with their life as a student. The
child-derived index of material deprivation ranged from 0.25 in Hungary to 0.83 in
Albania.

3.3  Bivariate Associations Between Parental Migration and Overall SWB of a

Child

The first research question of this study was whether having migrant parents is a
depressing factor in a child’s subjective well-being. As can be seen in Table 6, in all
the countries analysed, children who indicated that at least one of their parents had
migrated abroad were characterised by lower average levels of SWB compared to
non-migrant children, although, except for Albania and Croatia, the differences were
not statistically significant.
Furthermore, in all countries, particularly low levels of subjective well-being were
experienced by children with at least a migrant mother. This particularly strong rela-
tionship between child SWB and separation from the mother was primarily experi-
enced by children in Estonia. There were no significant differences in Hungary and
Poland, but this is obviously because of the small size of subsamples with such chil-
dren, given that in these countries only 1.2–1.5% of the children were in this situation.
Taking into consideration the gender of the child, the study shows that separation
from parents due to migration is mostly severe for girls (Table 7). In four countries
(Albania, Estonia, Poland and Romania), girls who indicated that at least one of their
parents worked abroad experienced much lower levels on the CW-SWBS scale than

1 3
Subjective Well-being of Children Left Behind by Migrant Parents in Six…

Table 7  Average subjective well-being (CW-SWBS, range: 0-100) and migration of at least one parent, by
country, gender and age group
Boys Girls 10 years old 12 years old
No Yes No Yes No Yes No Yes
Albania 95.6 96.5 97.0 95.6** 97.0 97.3 95.6 94.7**
Croatia 90.4 89.5 89.2 87.1 92.1 91.7 87.3 85.7
Estonia 82.9 82.7 86.4 78.5*** 87.8 84.7* 81.9 76.7*
Hungary 92.0 88.1 86.9 85.7 90.9 88.1 87.8 85.3
Poland 86.0 80.9** 84.9 77.7** 88.5 83.7 82.3 74.4***
Romania 95.5 93.7** 94.4 90.4** 95.8 92.9 93.9 91.3***
Note: * indicates p < .05; ** indicates p < .01; *** indicates p < .001
‘Yes’ refers to children with at least one parent worked abroad
‘No’ means children whose neither parent worked abroad

did those whose parents did not. Among boys, these differences were only noticeable
in Poland and Romania.
The impact of parental migration on subjective well-being was stronger among 12
years-old-children. At the same time, significant differences were not found between
10-year-olds with migrant parents and those with non-migrant parents, except for
Estonia (Table 7).
In contrast, in Croatia and Hungary, the countries with the least frequent instances
of parental migration, no significant differences in average levels of subjective well-
being (SWB) were observed between children from migrant and non-migrant fami-
lies in various subgroups categorized by gender and age.

3.4  Bivariate Associations Between Parental Migration, Material Deprivation,

Family Life and School Life Satisfaction

The next stage of the analysis assessed the relationship between parental migration
and three other independent variables: family material deprivation, children’s satis-
faction with family life, and student life. Bivariate comparisons are summarised in
Table 8.
Evidence across most countries supports the notion that there is a relationship
between children’s satisfaction with family life, specifically the individuals they
reside with, and their experiences of parental separation. In most countries (exclud-
ing Croatia), children who were left behind exhibited lower levels of satisfaction than
their counterparts. However, statistically significant differences were observed solely
in Albania, Estonia, and Romania.
Similar differences were observed regarding children’s satisfaction with their life
as a student. Children whose at least one parent had gone abroad to work reported
significantly lower levels of satisfaction in half of the countries. This pattern was
particularly visible in Poland.
Similarly, family material deprivation among children of migrants was found to be
higher than that of non-left-behind children in all six analysed countries. However,
the statistical tests revealed significant differences only in Estonia and Romania.

1 3
 S. Bălțătescu et al.

Table 8  Mean family life satisfaction, school life satisfaction, material deprivation, and migration of at
least one parent, by country
Family life School life Material
satisfaction satisfaction deprivation
(range: 0 to 10) (range: 0 to 10) (range: 0 to 8)
No Yes No Yes No Yes
Albania 9.8 9.7** 9.7 9.7 0.80 0.85
Croatia 9.4 9.5 8.2 8.0 0.40 0.49
Estonia 9.2 8.9** 8.0 7.7** 0.32 0.38*
Hungary 9.4 9.3 7.3 7.3 0.25 0.27
Poland 9.1 8.8 7.7 7.1** 0.51 0.57
Romania 9.6 9.4* 8.9 8.6** 0.53 0.73**
Note: * indicates p < .05; ** indicates p < .01; *** indicates p < .001
‘Yes’ refers to children with at least one parent worked abroad
‘No’ means children whose neither parent worked abroad

3.5  Regression Models with Parental Migration, Material Conditions and Family
and School Satisfaction as Predictors of Children’s SWB

Next, hierarchical regression analyses were performed to investigate how parental

migration, together with other independent variables, could predict high subjective
well-being. Table 9 presents the regression coefficients and odds ratios for each coun-
try. In Models A, age, gender, material deprivation, and parental migration accounted
for 7% (Nagelkerke R2 for Hungary) to 15% (for Albania) of the variance in subjec-
tive well-being. The Models B, including additionally the satisfaction estimates of
family and school, indicated a noticeable improvement, particularly for Estonia and
Croatia, where the R-squared values increased the most. The analysis revealed that
in both Models A and B, in all countries included in the study, children who scored
high on the index of material deprivation were more likely to evaluate their sub-
jective well-being as low. With regard to parental migration, the Models A showed
statistically significant effects only for Estonia, Poland, and Romania, referring to
lower SWB among children whose one or both parents had stayed abroad for at least
a month in the last year. After adding family and school satisfaction to the models,
parental migration remained a significant determinant for Poland and Romania.
The results in Models B indicated that domain-specific satisfaction assessments
significantly predicted overall subjective well-being in all observed countries, except
for Albania. In other words, children who rated their satisfaction with family mem-
bers and school higher were more likely to belong to the group with high subjec-
tive well-being than were those whose ratings of family and school were lower. For
Albania, only school satisfaction was positively related to the assessments of life in
general.
In accordance with the findings of previous studies (e.g. Casas and González-
Carrasco, 2019), overall life satisfaction declined with age similarly across countries.
Gender also turned out to be a statistically significant factor in most models, but not
in the same way for all countries. In Croatia, Hungary, Poland, and Romania, boys
reported higher satisfaction with their lives, while in Albania, girls did (only in Model
A); in the case of Estonia, this relationship was insignificant.

1 3
Subjective Well-being of Children Left Behind by Migrant Parents in Six…

Table 9  Logistic regression models of CW-SWBS onto parental migration, family and school life satisfac-
tion and material deprivation, by country
MODEL A MODEL B
Variables b OR SE b OR SE
Albania Parental migration (1 = yes) 0.086 1.09 0.287 − 0.017 0.98 0.313
Family life satisfaction − 0.013 0.99 0.105
School life satisfaction 0.606*** 1.83 0.067
Material deprivation − 0.526*** 0.59 0.064 − 0.437*** 0.64 0.070
Gender (1 = girls) 0.824** 2.28 0.252 0.403 1.50 0.277
Age group (1 = 12yo) -1.205*** 0.30 0.271 -1.255*** 0.29 0.300
Intercept 4.332*** 0.273 − 0.931 1.094
Chi-square 86.21*** 168.38***
Nagelkerke R2 0.145 0.278
Croatia Parental migration (1 = yes) − 0.019 0.98 0.176 0.006 1.01 0.221
Family life satisfaction 0.781*** 2.18 0.060
School life satisfaction 0.381*** 1.46 0.029
Material deprivation − 0.664*** 0.51 0.071 − 0.470*** 0.63 0.082
Gender (1 = girls) − 0.302* 0.74 0.119 − 0.700*** 0.50 0.147
Age group (1 = 12yo) − 0.949*** 0.39 0.124 − 0.434** 0.65 0.149
Intercept 2.679*** 0.132 -7.555 0.607
Chi-square 140.40*** 659.36***
Nagelkerke R2 0.102 0.427
Estonia Parental migration (1 = yes) − 0.378** 0.69 0.128 − 0.223 0.80 0.158
Family life satisfaction 0.620*** 1.86 0.049
School life satisfaction 0.438*** 1.55 0.032
Material deprivation -761*** 0.47 0.075 − 0.561*** 0.57 0.084
Gender (1 = girls) 0.166 1.18 0.106 − 0.142 0.87 0.131
Age group (1 = 12yo) − 0.811*** 0.44 0.110 − 0.387** 0.68 0.135
Intercept 1.755*** 0.113 -7.273*** 0.501
Chi-square 189.68*** 796.08***
Nagelkerke R2 0.131 0.476
Hungary Parental migration (1 = yes) − 0.211 0.81 0.183 − 0.042 0.96 0.223
Family life satisfaction 0.767*** 2.15 0.059
School life satisfaction 0.315*** 1.42 0.030
Material deprivation − 0.507*** 0.60 0.080 − 0.357*** 0.67 0.091
Gender (1 = girls) − 0.661*** 0.52 0.129 − 0.872*** 0.42 0.152
Age group (1 = 12yo) − 0.465*** 0.63 0.126 − 0.507*** 0.60 0.147
Intercept 2.423*** 0.131 -6.623*** 0.572
Chi-square 81.37*** 481.80***
Nagelkerke R2 0.068 0.365
Poland Parental migration (1 = yes) − 0.599*** 0.55 0.131 − 0.418** 0.66 0.159
Family life satisfaction 0.479*** 1.61 0.039
School life satisfaction 0.354*** 1.42 0.025
Material deprivation − 0.515*** 0.60 0.056 − 0.410*** 0.66 0.063
Gender (1 = girls) − 0.122 0.89 0.100 -0.352** 0.70 0.120
Age group (1 = 12yo) − 0.671*** 0.51 0.102 − 0.523*** 0.59 0.120
Intercept 1.905*** 0.105 -4.492*** 0.389
Chi-square 151,89*** 715.25***

1 3
 S. Bălțătescu et al.

Table 9  (continued)
MODEL A MODEL B
Variables b OR SE b OR SE
Nagelkerke R2 0.096 0.399
Romania Parental migration (1 = yes) − 0.544** 0.58 0.175 − 0.410* 0.66 0.204
Family life satisfaction 0.458*** 1.58 0.051
School life satisfaction 0.426*** 1.53 0.042
Material deprivation − 0.444*** 0.64 0.042 − 0.344*** 0.71 0.052
Gender (1 = girls) − 0.578*** 0.56 0.175 − 0.677*** 0.51 0.202
Age group (1 = 12yo) − 0.765*** 0.47 0.178 − 0.599*** 0.55 0.209
Intercept 3.859*** 0.206 -3.878*** 0.568
Chi-square 130.73*** 385,75***
Nagelkerke R2 0.139 0.389
Note: * indicates p < .05; ** indicates p < .01; *** indicates p < .001

4  Discussion and Conclusions

This study aims to cross-nationally compare the influence of parental migration on

children’s subjective well-being in six European countries with a communist legacy
and migration history after the 1990s: Albania, Croatia, Estonia, Hungary, Poland,
and Romania. It focuses on the following research topics: comparative levels of sub-
jective well-being (SWB) among children left behind (CLB) in these countries; the
relationship between parental migration and children’s satisfaction with family life
and overall life; impact of parental migration on girls’ and boys’ SWB; how chil-
dren of migrating parents assess the family’s material situation; the effect of parental
migration on children’s satisfaction with school; independent influences of these fac-
tors on children’s subjective well-being in these countries.
The six European countries included in the research exhibit a complex situa-
tion concerning both the prevalence of children left behind and migration strategies
adopted by parents residing abroad. The proportion of children who experienced
temporary separation from their parents was more than twice as high in Albania and
Romania than in Croatia and Hungary. Furthermore, the research findings indicate
a notable gender disparity in the decision to migrate among the surveyed countries.
Specifically, fathers were found to be significantly more inclined (up to eight times)
than mothers to choose migration. Several factors, including gendered occupational
segregation, societal expectations of men as providers, lack of job opportunities
for women in some industries, concerns about safety and security, and caregiving
roles and responsibilities placed on women within families, are mentioned among
the explanations (Christou & Kofman, 2022). However, Romania stood out, with an
average percentage of migrating mothers almost three times higher than that in other
countries. Migration of mothers was conceptualized as “care drain” (Ehrenreich &
Hochschild, 2003). It is not exceptional that at such levels, the critical situation of
children left behind became most visible in Romania.
Our research provides evidence of the important role of parental migration in chil-
dren’s global assessment of their own lives. In general, the results are consistent with
those of various studies (Bălţătescu, 2008; Cortina, 2014) indicating that experienc-

1 3
Subjective Well-being of Children Left Behind by Migrant Parents in Six…

ing separation from parents due to their departure abroad is a significant factor in
lowering a child’s SWB, although the strength of the impact varies from country to
country. Comparing, for instance, the two countries with the highest share of chil-
dren from migrant families, while in Romania the differences between the SWB of
children not left behind and the SWB of children from all categories of left behind
(at least father, at least mother or at least one parent) are statistically significant, in
Albania the difference is significant only for not left- behind children and children
who have or had at least the mother abroad (Table 6). One possible reason is that
transnational families vary greatly in these six countries in what concerns the family
structure, the social relationships, norms and the distribution of gender roles within
the family, as well as the motives, timing and duration of migration. However, as
shown in Table 4, in all countries the children who are in at least one of these three
categories have lower SWB than the not left-behind children, so the key message is
that migration of a parent does reduce the subjective well-being of children.
Overall, we are inclined to conclude that, taken into account context differences,
the parental migration is negatively associated with children’s satisfaction with fam-
ily and with school life, while there are some context differences. In three of the
countries analysed, children of migrant parents show significantly lower levels of
satisfaction with their family members, which seems to support previous results
(Bălţătescu et al., 2014; Ye et al., 2020). Similarly, satisfaction with school life was
strongly correlated with parental migration in half of the countries analysed, demon-
strating that coming from a transnational family can, under certain conditions, nega-
tively affect a child’s perception of himself as a student. On one side this calls for the
need for more in-depth analyses targeting, for example, the quality of relationships
in transnational families or the frequency of contact with the absent parent, or the
quality of relationships that children have at school with peers and teachers. On the
other hand, we cannot interpret correlation as causation. There may be other factors
involved (e.g., deterioration of the relationship between parents) that may contribute
both to the decision to migrate and to low family satisfaction.
This evidence may be related to higher vulnerability of children whose parent(s)
are on the move because of, for example, the lack of permanent availability of the
parent when the child is in need, and not feeling safe about the future. Kutsar et al.
(2014) showed that children felt unconfident about their future because the parents
had not informed them about the motivation of the migration or the time of the return.
Thus, children left behind by migrating parents are left facing alone their home and
school problems, including coping with school bullying or solving stressful situa-
tions at home. Moreover, they may not be informed how long this vulnerable situ-
ation will last. In the same way, the burden of increased care tasks at home may be
the main cause of lower subjective well-being of children left behind, mostly in the
case of girls.
Indeed, our study shows that girls are more vulnerable than boys to the negative
consequences of having migrant parents. In four of the six countries analysed, girls
whose at least one parent went abroad for some time stood out with significantly
lower levels of SWB, while such significant differences among boys were only found
in Poland and Romania. Satisfaction with family life was also significantly lower
among left-behind compared to non-left behind girls in most countries: in Albania,

1 3
 S. Bălțătescu et al.

Estonia, Poland and Romania. No such differences were observed among the boys.
We agree with Robila (2011), who suggested that girls, compared to boys, are more
emotionally affected by the leave of their parents especially in cases of mother’s job
migration. Jordan and Graham (2012), and also Ye et al. (2020), admit that mothers’
migration endangers most significantly the SWB of their children. Romanian chil-
dren are at the highest risk, giving the high levels of mothers’ emigration from this
country. Results by Kutsar et al. (2014) suggest that parent’s job migration impacts
traditional family roles, particularly for migrating fathers, who are often freed from
their children’s emotional care, as previously pointed out by Dreby (2006). By con-
trast, migrant mothers face difficulties due to their crucial role in providing emotional
care. The absence of mothers affects their availability to children and their ability to
meet their customary needs. Parent(s) job migration leads to changes in both the rela-
tional and structural aspects of family life. Others must assume the responsibilities of
departed family members. These changing roles, along with a shift in responsibilities
and care, result in reduced children’s subjective well-being (SWB) and satisfaction
with family life.
One of the most consistent results of this study is that the difference between left-
behind and non-left-behind children seems to widen with age (Table 7). This rather
contradicts the previous findings (Bălţătescu et al., 2014; Cortina, 2014). On one
hand, older children adapted better to their circumstances. Moreover, they may be
less emotionally impacted since they have more independent decision-making power
and spend more time with friends, among other factors, compared to younger chil-
dren. However, they may need to care for their younger siblings, particularly when
their mother migrates (or help their mother when their father is away). The opposing
influences of these factors need to be further explored.
The study also indicated that children with migrant parents experience greater
material deprivation, which is associated with lower overall subjective well-being
(Models A and B). This is consistent with previous research showing that migration
does not increase the level of living of the family above the average levels (Cortina,
2014; Jordan & Graham, 2012). According to one of the most influential theories in
the field, the decision to migrate is based on the relative deprivation of household
members (Stark & Taylor, 1989). Parents migrate by job to improve their families’
economic performance, but this cannot bring about a momentous change in the fam-
ily’s or the child’s life.
An important message of this paper is that while left-behind children tended to
have lower levels of SWB, in the six Central and Eastern European countries, there is
no uniform picture of the negative impact of parental migration once other analysed
variables are included. For example, considering the material deprivation of a child’s
family, significant differences in subjective well-being between non-left-behind and
left-behind children were found only in three countries: Estonia, Poland, and Roma-
nia. Thus, material deprivation is associated with children having lower SWB, but
it does not necessarily eliminate the link between living in a migrant family and
the child’s perception of life. The introduction of family and school life satisfaction
into the logistic regression models (compare Models A and B for each country in
Table 7) substantially weakened the association between parental migration and child
SWB only in Estonia. In this country, the differences in SWB between children from

1 3
Subjective Well-being of Children Left Behind by Migrant Parents in Six…

migrant and non-migrant families are no longer statistically significant once family
life satisfaction is considered. In other countries, the new variables slightly weakened
the correlations between parental migration and child SWB, although the explanatory
power of the models it improved. Thus, the analyses suggest that there may be some
moderating factors for the relationships between status of being left behind, satisfac-
tion with family and school, and subjective well-being. Further research is needed in
this area.

4.1  Limitations and Further Work

Despite the unique nature of the study, there are some limitations that need to be
mentioned. First, the design of the study is cross-sectional. As always with correla-
tional analysis any influences or causal relations mentioned in the text are only sug-
gested and cannot be proved. Second, the analysis is based on children’s answers to
a question mixing their parents’ labour migration with departure for other reasons. In
addition, as the children only indicated whether their parents had spent at least one
month abroad in the past year, we were not able to investigate how long they had
experienced separation from their mother and/or father and how long ago this situ-
ation had occurred. At the same time, it is not clear whether children who declared
the international migration of both parents experienced an episode of their absence
simultaneously or alternately. Finally, this study did not focus on the relationship and
frequency of contact between the children and their parents residing/working abroad.
All these considerations may be important factors in explaining the impact of paren-
tal migration on children’s SWB.
Further research effort should also be dedicated to the independent effect of the
family structure and of the care arrangements for the children left behind (giving that,
for example, living in the multi-generational households may buffer the effect of the
absent parent(s)). All these factors should be tested independently using mediation/
moderation analysis techniques. Additional studies may address also the situation of
younger children (Children’s Worlds study also focus on 8 years old children), poten-
tially the most vulnerable to the negative consequences of parental absence.
All these conclusions and limitations highlight the importance of conducting fur-
ther research in this field to gain a deeper understanding of the intricate interactions
between parental migration, the subjective well-being of children left behind, and
the factors that moderate or mediate these relationships. Obtaining these insights is
crucial for formulating more specific and effective interventions and policies that can
help improve the well-being of left-behind children in countries that send out migrant
workers. With a greater understanding of the factors that influence the well-being
of these children, policymakers and practitioners will be better equipped to imple-
ment targeted strategies to address the unique challenges faced by this vulnerable
population.

Acknowledgements  The study has been realised with the financial support from the National Science
Centre (DEC-2015/19/ D/HS4/00402) in Poland and the Estonian Research Council (Grant No. PRG700).
In Estonia, the data collection was supported by the Estonian Research Council (PUT1530). Data col-
lection in Romania was realized within the project “Child well-being in Romania”, funded by Fondation
Botnar, Switzerland, with the support of Jacobs Foundation, Switzerland and University of Oradea.

1 3
 S. Bălțătescu et al.

Thanks are due to all children who kindly agreed to answer the questionnaire, and to the Jacobs Foundation
for supporting The Children’s World: International Survey of Children’s Well-Being (ISCWeb) project.

Funding  The authors have no financial or proprietary interests in any material discussed in this article.

Data Availability  Data is freely available from the Project website (https://isciweb.org/).

Code Availability  Not aplicable.

Declarations

Conflicts of Interest  No conflict of interest declared.

Open Access  This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License,
which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long
as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative
Commons licence, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this
article are included in the article’s Creative Commons licence, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line
to the material. If material is not included in the article’s Creative Commons licence and your intended use
is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission
directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this licence, visit http://creativecommons.org/
licenses/by/4.0/.

References
Allardt, E. (1993). Having, loving, being: An alternative to the swedish model of Welfare Research. In M.
Nussbaum, & A. Sen (Eds.), The quality of life (pp. 88–94). Oxford University Press.
ANPDCA Romania (2023). Situaţie copii cu părinţi plecaţi la muncă în străinătate [Situation of children
with parents working abroad] 30.09.2022 Autoritatea Naţională pentru Protecţia Drepturilor Copilu-
lui și Adopție [National Authority for the Protection of the Rights of the Child and Adoption]. https://
copii.gov.ro/1/wp-content/uploads/2023/01/Situatie-copii-cu-parinti-plecati-la-munca-30-09-2022.
doc.
Antia, K., Boucsein, J., Deckert, A., Dambach, P., Račaitė, J., Šurkienė, G., Jaenisch, T., Horstick, O.,
& Winkler, V. (2020). Effects of International Labour Migration on the Mental Health and well-
being of left-behind children: A systematic literature review. International Journal of Environmental
Research and Public Health, 17(12), 4335. https://doi.org/10.3390/ijerph17124335.
Artico, C. I. (2003). Latino families broken by immigration: the adolescent’s perceptions. LFB Scholarly
Publ. http://www.loc.gov/catdir/toc/fy037/2003003569.html.
Bălţătescu, S. (2008). June 6–7). Migration of a parent, well-being and social competence of adoles-
cents. A study with Romanian high school students International workshop: The Effects of Inter-
national Labor Migration on Political Learning, Cluj-Napoca. https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.
cfm?abstract_id=4409213.
Bălţătescu, S., Hatos, A., & Oșvat, C. (2014). September 15–18). The effects of parental migration on sub-
jective well-being of children: the case of Romania Sustaining Quality of Life across the Globe. The
XII Quality of Life Conference, Free University Berlin. http://www.isciweb.org/_Uploads/dbsAt-
tachedFiles/BerlinISQOLSEffectsParentalMigration_Baltatescu.pdf.
Ben-Arieh, A. (2008). The child indicators Movement: Past, Present, and Future. Child Indicators
Research, 1(1), 3–16. https://doi.org/10.1007/s12187-007-9003-1.
Blaskó, Z., & Szabó, L. (2016). Migrants with left-behind children in Hungary. In K. Fazekas, & Z. Blasko
(Eds.), The hungarian labour market 2016 (the hungarian labour market yearbooks) (pp. 87–89).
Institute of Economics, Centre for Economic and Regional Studies. https://www.researchgate.net/
publication/323014698_Migrants_with_left-behind_children_in_Hungary.
Botezat, A., & Pfeiffer, F. (2014). The Impact of Parents Migration on The Well-Being of Children Left
Behind: Initial Evidence from Romania. http://ftp.iza.org/dp8225.pdf.

1 3
Subjective Well-being of Children Left Behind by Migrant Parents in Six…

Brągiel, J. (2013). „Eurosieroctwo” jako rezultat przemiany więzi rodzinnych [Euro-orphanhood as a sign
of the transformation of family bonds]. Family Forum, 3, 155–169. https://czasopisma.uni.opole.pl/
index.php/ff/article/view/893.
Casas, F. (2011). Subjective social indicators and child and adolescent well-being. Child Indicators
Research, 4(4), 555–575. https://doi.org/10.1007/s12187-010-9093-z.
Casas, F., & Frønes, I. (2020). From snapshots to complex continuity: Making sense of the multifaceted
concept of child well-being. Childhood, 27(2), 188–202. https://doi.org/10.1177/0907568219895809.
Casas, F., & González-Carrasco, M. (2019). Subjective well-being decreasing with age: New Research on
Children over 8. Child Development, 90(2), 375–394. https://doi.org/10.1111/cdev.13133.
Casas, F., & González-Carrasco, M. (2021). Analysing comparability of four Multi-Item Well-being psy-
chometric Scales among 35 countries using children’s worlds 3rd Wave 10 and 12-year-olds samples.
Child Indicators Research, 14(5), 1829–1861. https://doi.org/10.1007/s12187-021-09825-0.
Chai, X., Li, X., Ye, Z., Li, Y., & Lin, D. (2019). Subjective well-being among left-behind children in rural
China: The role of ecological assets and individual strength. Child: care health and development,
45(1), 63–70. https://doi.org/10.1111/cch.12630.
Chipea, F., & Bălţătescu, S. (2010). Copiii lăsaţi acasă de emigranţi. Studiu în judeţul Bihor [Children
left home by emigrants. A study in Bihor County]. Sociologie românească VIII(4), 104–126. https://
arsociologie.ro/revistasociologieromaneasca/sr/article/view/2010_4_chipea/285.
Chipea, F., & Iacob, A. (2010). Impactul migraţiei părinţilor asupra „copiilor rămaşi acasă”. Studiu
exploratoriu la nivelul judeţului Bihor [The impact of parents’ migration on “children left at home”.
Exploratory study at the level of Bihor county]. In S. Bălţătescu, F. Chipea, I. Cioară, A. Hatos,
& S. Săveanu (Eds.), Educaţie şi schimbare socială. Perspective sociologice şi comunicaţionale
(pp. 159–166). Editura Universităţii din Oradea.
Christou, A., & Kofman, E. (2022). Gender and Migration: An Introduction. In A. Christou & E. Kofman
(Eds.), Gender and Migration (pp. 1–12). https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-91971-9_1.
Cojocaru, M., Gulei, A., Irimescu, G., Luca, C., Lupu, A., & Miftode, V. (2006). Migraţia si traficul mino-
rilor neînsoţiţi: măsuri urgente pentru minorii aflaţi in situaţie de vulnerabilitate extremă [Migration
and trafficking of unaccompanied minors: Urgent measures for minors in a situation of extreme vul-
nerability]. Course support within the project “Irregular Migration and Traffiking in unaccompanied
minors. Urgent Measures for Minors in Situations of Extreme Vulnerability”.
Cojocaru, S., Islam, M., & Timofte, D. (2015). The effects of parent migration on the children left at
home: the use of ad-hoc research for raising moral panic in Romania and the Republic of Moldova.
Anthropologist, 22(3), 568–575.
Cortina, J. (2014). Beyond the money: The impact of international migration on children’s life satisfaction:
Evidence from Ecuador and Albania. Migration and Development, 3(1), 1–19. https://doi.org/10.10
80/21632324.2014.885635.
Council of Europe (2020). Impact of labour migration on left-behind children. https://pace.coe.int/en/
files/28741/html.
Dąbrowska, A., & Szumilas, E. M. (2017). Uczniowie z rodzin migracyjnych w szkole [Pupils from migrant
families in school]. Ośrodek Rozwoju Edukacji.
Danilewicz, W. (2012). Rodzina w wyobrażeniach pedagogów i jej rzeczywistych doświadczeniach [The
perception of family as by educators and its real experiences]. Rocznik Lubuski, 38(2), 117–127.
Démurger, S. (2015). Migration and families left behind. IZA World of Labor. https://doi.org/10.15185/
izawol.144.
Diener, E. (1984). Subjective well-being. Psychological Bulletin, 95(3), 542–575. https://doi.
org/10.1037/0033-2909.95.3.542.
Dreby, J. (2006). Honor and Virtue: Mexican parenting in the transnational context. Gender & Society,
20(1), 32–59. https://doi.org/10.1177/0891243205282660.
Dreby, J. (2007). Children and power in Mexican transnational families. Journal of Marriage and Fam-
ily,69(4), 1050–1064. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1741-3737.2007.00430.x
Ehrenreich, B., & Hochschild, A. R. (2003). Global woman: Nannies, maids, and sex workers in the new
economy. Macmillan.
Eurostat (2023, April 18). Enlargement countries - statistics on migration, residence permits, citizenship
and asylum. https://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/statistics-explained/index.php?title=Enlargement_coun-
tries_-_statistics_on_migration,_residence_permits,_citizenship_and_asylum&oldid=485831.
Eurostat (2022, March 30). Non-EU citizens make up 5.3% of the EU population. https://ec.europa.eu/
eurostat/web/products-eurostat-news/-/ddn-20220330-2.

1 3
 S. Bălțătescu et al.

Fan, Z., & Fan, X. (2021). Effect of Social Support on the Psychological Adjustment of Chinese left-
behind Rural Children: A Moderated Mediation Model. Frontiers in Psychology, 11, 604397. https://
doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2020.604397.
Fellmeth, G., Rose-Clarke, K., Zhao, C., Busert, L. K., Zheng, Y., Massazza, A., Sonmez, H., Eder, B.,
Blewitt, A., Lertgrai, W., Orcutt, M., Ricci, K., Mohamed-Ahmed, O., Burns, R., Knipe, D., Harg-
reaves, S., Hesketh, T., Opondo, C., & Devakumar, D. (2018). Health impacts of parental migra-
tion on left-behind children and adolescents: A systematic review and meta-analysis. The Lancet,
392(10164), 2567–2582. https://doi.org/10.1016/s0140-6736(18)32558-3.
Gao, C., Tadesse, E., & Khalid, S. (2022). Word of Mouth from Left-Behind children in Rural China:
Exploring their psychological, academic and physical well-being during COVID-19. Child Indica-
tors Research, 15(5), 1719–1740. https://doi.org/10.1007/s12187-022-09923-7.
Gassmann, F., Siegel, M., Vanore, M., & Waidler, J. (2018). Unpacking the relationship between parental
Migration and Child Well-Being: Evidence from Moldova and Georgia. Child Indicators Research,
11(2), 423–440. https://doi.org/10.1007/s12187-017-9461-z.
Gëdeshi, I., & King, R. (2018). New trends in potential migration from Albania. Tirana: Friedrich-Ebert-
Stiftung Office.
Giannelli, G. C., & Mangiavacchi, L. (2010). Children’s Schooling and Parental Migration: Empiri-
cal Evidence on the ‘Left-behind’ Generation in Albania. LABOUR, 24, 76–92. https://doi.
org/10.1111/j.1467-9914.2010.00504.x.
Gizicka, D. (2010). Dzieci w Polsce a skutki migracji zarobkowych rodziców [Children in Poland and the
effects of their parents’ job migration]. Studia Polonijne(31), 159–169.
Government of Albania (2018). The National Strategy of Diaspora and Action Plan 2018–2024. Retrieved
from: https://diaspora.gov.al/wp-content/uploads/2020/12/NATIONAL-STRATEGY-OF-DIAS-
PORA-2018-2024-english-IOM.pdf.
Graham, E., Jordan, L. P., Yeoh, B. S. A., Lam, T., Asis, M., & Su, K. (2012). Transnational families and
the Family Nexus: Perspectives of indonesian and filipino children left behind by migrant parent(s).
Environment and Planning A: Economy and Space, 44(4), 793–815. https://doi.org/10.1068/a4445.
Hoang, L. A., Lam, T., Yeoh, B. S. A., & Graham, E. (2015). Transnational migration, changing care
arrangements and left-behind children’s responses in South-east Asia. Children’s Geographies, 13(3),
263–277. https://doi.org/10.1080/14733285.2015.972653.
Horváth, I., & Anghel, R. G. (2009). Migration and its consequences for Romania. Comparative Southeast
European Studies, 57(4), 386–403. https://doi.org/10.1515/soeu-2009-570406.
Huebner, E. S. (1991). Initial development of the student’s life satisfaction scale. School Psychology Inter-
national, 12(3), 231–240. https://doi.org/10.1177/0143034391123010.
Hungarian Central Statistical Office (2023). 22.1.1.31. A kivándorló magyar állampolgárok célországok
és nemek szerint [Emigrating Hungarian citizens by destination, country and gender]. https://www.
ksh.hu/stadat_files/nep/hu/nep0031.html.
IMIN (2021). Croatian Children in Migration and Return (Completed projects). https://www.imin.hr/en/
croatian-children-in-migration-and-return-5-12-090.
Inglis, C., Li, W., & Khadria, B. (2019). The SAGE handbook of international migration. SAGE Publica-
tions Ltd.
Integral Human Development (2023). Country Profile: Croatia. https://migrants-refugees.va/
country-profile/country-profile-croatia.
Irimescu, G., & Lupu, A. (2006). Home alone! Study made in Iași area on children separated from one
or both parents due to parents leaving for work abroad]. Asociaţia Alternative Sociale. http://www.
childrenleftbehind.eu/wp-content/uploads/2011/05/2006_AAS_CLB_Romania.pdf.
Jampaklay, A., & Vapattanawong, P. (2013). The Subjective Well-Being of children in transnational and
non-migrant households: Evidence from Thailand. Asian and Pacific Migration Journal, 22(3), 377–
400. https://doi.org/10.1177/011719681302200304.
Jordan, L. P., & Graham, E. (2012). Resilience and well-being among children of migrant parents in South‐
East Asia. Child Development, 83(5), 1672–1688. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-8624.2012.01810.x.
King, R. (2005). Albania as a laboratory for the study of migration and development. Journal of Southern
Europe and the Balkans, 7(2), 133–155. https://doi.org/10.1080/14613190500132880.
Krusell, S. (2009). Eesti residentide välismaal töötamine [Estonian residents working abroad]. Eesti statis-
tika kvartalikiri, 2(9), 46–62.
Krusell, S. (2015). Estonians Working Abroad. In E. Saar (Ed.), Estonian human development report
2014/2015 (pp. 124–131). Estonian Cooperation Assembly.

1 3
Subjective Well-being of Children Left Behind by Migrant Parents in Six…

Kutsar, D., Darmody, M., & Lahesoo, L. (2014). Borders Separating Families: Children’s Perspectives of
Labour Migration in Estonia. In S. Spyrou & M. Christou (Eds.), Children and Borders (pp. 261–
275). Palgrave Macmillan UK. https://doi.org/10.1057/9781137326317_15.
Lan, X., & Moscardino, U. (2019). Direct and interactive effects of perceived teacher-student relationship
and grit on student wellbeing among stay-behind early adolescents in urban China. Learning and
Individual Differences, 69, 129–137. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.lindif.2018.12.003.
Luca, C., Pascaru, G., & Foca, L. (2009). Manual pentru profesioniştii care lucrează cu copiii rămaşi sin-
guri acasă ca urmare a plecării părinţilor la muncă în străinătate. Terra Nostra. http://singuracasa.
ro/_images/img_asistenta_sociala/top_menu/Colaboraretransfrontaliera/Pachet%20de%20resurse/
manual.pdf.
Lutz, H. (2008). Migration and domestic work: a European perspective on a global theme. Ashgate. http://
www.loc.gov/catdir/toc/ecip0720/2007023686.html.
Main, G., & Bradshaw, J. (2012). A child material Deprivation Index. Child Indicators Research, 5(3),
503–521. https://doi.org/10.1007/s12187-012-9145-7.
Marchetta, F., & Sim, S. (2021). The effect of parental migration on the schooling of children left behind in
rural Cambodia. World Development, 146, 105593. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.worlddev.2021.105593.
Marcus, R., León-Himmelstine, C., Carvalho, T., & Rodríguez, D. J. T. (2023). Children who stay behind
in Latin America and the Caribbean while parents migrate. UNICEF LACRO. https://www.unicef.
org/lac/media/40976/file/children-who-stay-behind.pdf.
Massey, D., Arango, J., Hugo, G., Kouaouci, A., Pellegrino, A., & Taylor, J. (1998). Worlds in motion.
Understanding International Migration at the end of the millennium. Clarendon Press; Oxford Uni-
versity Press.
Matyjas, B. (2017). Social and educational impact of euro-orphanhood (based on the research conducted
among primary school students). Wychowanie w Rodzinie XV(1), 39–52. https://www.repozytorium.
uni.wroc.pl/dlibra/show-content/publication/95981/edition/89958/.
McAuliffe, M., & Triandafyllidou, A. (Eds.). (2021). World Migration Report 2022. International Organi-
zation for Migration (IOM). https://publications.iom.int/books/world-migration-report-2022.
Migali, S., Natale, F., Tintori, G., Kalantaryan, S., Grubanov-Boskovic, S., Scipioni, M., Farinosi, F., Cat-
taneo, C., Benandi, B., Follador, M., Bidoglio, G., McMahon, S., & Barbas, T. (2018). International
Migration Drivers. Luxembourg: Publications Office of the European Union. https://publications.jrc.
ec.europa.eu/repository/handle/JRC112622.
Nerb, G., Hitzelsberger, F., Woidich, A., Pommer, S., Hemmer, S., & Heczko, P. (2009). Scientific report
on the mobility of cross-border workers within the EU-27/EEA/EFTA countries.
Ostrowska, K. (2017). O sytuacji dzieci, których rodzice wyjechali za granicę w celach zarobkowych.
Raport 2016 [On the situation of children whose parents have gone abroad for work. Report 2016].
Ośrodek Rozwoju Edukacji.
Ozyegin, G., & Hondagneu-Sotelo, P. (2008). Conclusion: Domestic Work, Migration and the New Gen-
der Order in Contemporary Europe. In H. Lutz (Ed.), Migration and domestic work: a European
perspective on a global theme (pp. 195–208). Ashgate. https://doi.org/10.4324/9781315595306.
Puzio-Wacławik, B. (2010). The Social and Economic Impact of the Migration of Poles after Poland’s
accession to the EU. Zeszyty Naukowe PTE, 8, 179–193.
Racaite, J., Surkiene, G., Jakubauskiene, M., Sketerskiene, R., & Wulkau, L. (2019). Parent emigration
and physical health of children left behind: Systematic review of the literature. European Journal of
Public Health, 29(Supplement_4), https://doi.org/10.1093/eurpub/ckz186.024.
Rees, G. (2019). Variations in children’s Affective Subjective Well-Being at seven Years Old: An analysis
of current and historical factors. Child Indicators Research, 12(1), 141–160. https://doi.org/10.1007/
s12187-017-9516-1.
Rees, G., Savahl, S., Lee, B., & Casas, F. (2020). Children’s views on their lives and well-being in 35
countries: A report on the Children’s Worlds study, 2016-19. https://isciweb.org/the-data/wave-3/
wave-3-comparative-report/.
Why do you think someone would like to move abroad? Republikon Intézet, & Statista (2022). https://
www.statista.com/statistics/1299978/hungary-reasons-for-wanting-to-move-abroad/.
Robila, M. (2011). Parental Migration and Children’s outcomes in Romania [journal article]. Journal of
Child Family Studies, 20(3), 326–333. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10826-010-9396-1.
Seligson, J. L., Huebner, E. S., & Valois, R. F. (2003). Preliminary validation of the brief multidimensional
students’ life satisfaction scale (BMSLSS). Social Indicators Research, 61(2), 121–145. https://doi.
org/10.1023/a:1021326822957.

1 3
 S. Bălțătescu et al.

Shen, K., & Zhang, Y. (2018). The impacts of parental migration on children’s subjective well-being in
rural China: A double-edged sword. Eurasian Geography and Economics, 59(2), 267–289. https://
doi.org/10.1080/15387216.2018.1482223.
Song, S., Chen, C., & Zhang, A. (2018). Effects of parental Migration on Life satisfaction and academic
achievement of left-behind children in Rural China—A Case Study in Hubei Province. Children,
5(7), 87. https://doi.org/10.3390/children5070087.
Stark, O., & Taylor, J. E. (1989). Relative deprivation and International Migration. Demography, 26(1),
1–14. https://doi.org/10.2307/2061490.
Statistics Estonia (2022). Employed persons by Indicator, Place of residence, Sex, Location of main job and Refer-
ence period (TT234). https://andmed.stat.ee/en/stat/sotsiaalelu__tooturg__heivatud__aastastatistika/
TT234.
Statistics Poland (2021). Information on the size and directions of emigration for temporary stay from Poland
between 2004–2020. https://stat.gov.pl/en/topics/population/internationa-migration/information-on-
the-size-and-directions-of-emigration-for-temporary-stay-from-poland-between-2004-2020,8,14.
html.
Su, S., Li, X., Lin, D., Xu, X., & Zhu, M. (2013). Psychological adjustment among left-behind children in
rural China: The role of parental migration and parent-child communication. Child: care health and
development, 39(2), 162–170. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1365-2214.2012.01400.x.
Su, S., Li, X., Lin, D., & Zhu, M. (2017). Future Orientation, Social Support, and Psychological Adjust-
ment among Left-behind Children in Rural China: A Longitudinal Study [Original Research]. Fron-
tiers in Psychology, 8. https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2017.01309.
Suárez-Orozco, C., Bang, H. J., & Kim, H. Y. (2010). I Felt like my heart was staying behind: Psychologi-
cal implications of family separations & reunifications for immigrant youth. Journal of Adolescent
Research, 26(2), 222–257. https://doi.org/10.1177/0743558410376830.
Sun, X., Tian, Y., Zhang, Y., Xie, X., Heath, M. A., & Zhou, Z. (2015). Psychological development and
educational problems of left-behind children in rural China. School Psychology International, 36(3),
227–252. https://doi.org/10.1177/0143034314566669.
Toth, G., Toth, A., Voicu, O., & Ştefănescu, M. (2007). Efectele migraţiei: Copiii rămaşi acasă [The
effects of migration: Children left at home]. Fundaţia SOROS România.
UNDESA (2020). International Migrant Stock 2020 United Nations, Department of Economic
and Social Affairs, Population Division. https://www.un.org/development/desa/pd/content/
international-migrant-stock.
UNICEF (2020). Children “Left Behind”. https://www.unicef.org/documents/children-left-behind.
Van Luot, N., Dat, N. B., & Lam, T. Q. (2018). Subjective well-being among” left-behind Children” of
labour migrant parents in Rural Northern Vietnam. Pertanika Journal of Social Sciences & Humani-
ties, 26(3), 1529–1545. http://www.pertanika.upm.edu.my/pjtas/browse/regular-issue?article=J
SSH-1916-2016.
Veenhoven, R. (1984). Conditions of happiness. Kluwer Academic Publishers.
Walczak, B. (2008). Migracje poakcesyjne z perspektywy ucznia [Post-accession migration from a stu-
dent’s perspective]. Wydawnictwo Naukowe PWN.
Walczak, B. (2014). Dziecko, rodzina, szkoła wobec migracji rodzicielskich: 10 lat po akcesji do Unii
Europejskiej [Child, family, school in the face of parental migration: 10 years after accession to the
European Union]. Pedagogium WSNS.
Wang, S. X. (2014). The effect of parental Migration on the Educational Attainment of their left-behind
children in Rural China. The B E Journal of Economic Analysis & Policy, 14(3), 1037–1080. https://
doi.org/10.1515/bejeap-2013-0067.
Wu, Q., & Cebotari, V. (2018). Experiences of migration, parent-child interaction, and the life satisfaction
of children in Ghana and China. Population Space and Place, 24(7), e2160. https://doi.org/10.1002/
psp.2160.
Yang, D. (2008). International Migration, Remittances and Household Investment: Evidence from phil-
ippine migrants’ Exchange Rate Shocks. The Economic Journal, 118(528), 591–630. https://doi.
org/10.1111/j.1468-0297.2008.02134.x.
Ye, L., Qian, Y., Meng, S., Ye, D., Rong, C., Vandenhouten, E. E., Jing, F., & Mao, Y. (2020). Subjective
well-being of left-behind children: A cross-sectional study in a rural area of eastern China. Child
and Adolescent Psychiatry and Mental Health, 14(1), https://doi.org/10.1186/s13034-020-00333-7.

1 3
Subjective Well-being of Children Left Behind by Migrant Parents in Six…

Zieniuk-Cupryn, E. (2016). Społeczne skutki poakcesyjnych migracji ludności Polski w świetle raportu
Komitetu Badań nad Migracjami Polskiej Akademii Nauk [Social impact of the post-accession
migration of the Polish population in the light of the report of the Committee of Migration Research
of the Polish Academy of Sciences]. Facta Simonidis, 1(19), 109–123.

Publisher’s Note  Springer Nature remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps
and institutional affiliations.

Springer Nature or its licensor (e.g. a society or other partner) holds exclusive rights to this article under
a publishing agreement with the author(s) or other rightsholder(s); author self-archiving of the accepted
manuscript version of this article is solely governed by the terms of such publishing agreement and appli-
cable law.

Authors and Affiliations

Sergiu Bălțătescu1 · Tomasz Strózik2 · Kadri Soo3 · Dagmar Kutsar3 ·

Dorota Strózik4 · Claudia Bacter1

Tomasz Strózik
[email protected]
Sergiu Bălțătescu
[email protected]
Kadri Soo
[email protected]
Dagmar Kutsar
[email protected]
Dorota Strózik
[email protected]
Claudia Bacter
[email protected]

1
Doctoral School of Sociology, University of Oradea, Oradea, Romania
2
Institute of Informatics and Quantitative Economics, Poznan University of Economics and
Business, Poznań, Poland
3
Institute of Social Studies, University of Tartu, Tartu, Estonia
4
Institute of Socio-Economics, Poznan University of Economics and Business, Poznań,
Poland

1 3