The social and psychological effect of an adult child's emigration on non-immigrant Asian Indian elderly parents

The impact of immigration on parents left behind has been largely ignoredin the literature. This exploratory study uses cultural specificity theory toexamine the effect an adult child's emigration has on the familial supportsystem available to the parents left behind, and on the parent'spsychological well-being. Twenty-nine parents (age 55+) in India, who hadadult children in the United States, were selected using snowball sampling.Qualitative interviews based on a semi-structured interview schedule wereconducted during the fall and winter of 1997. Results show that althoughmost parents do not live in an extended family, they receive support fromextended family members. However, the biggest source of daily supportcomes from hired help. Hired help allows parents to live independently anddecreases reliance on informal support systems. Since hired help isrelatively inexpensive most parents can substitute help for their children.This does not alleviate feelings of loneliness and depression.