At the same time, the Japanese parent will likely encourage the child's freedom, especially in the early stages of life, while the American parent will tend to correct from early stages of development any misbehavior or errors. With the relationship mother-child, the Japanese mother will tend to emphasize less the development of the communication side for the child and will prefer a more symbiotic relationship (Ibid. page 71).
4. A family can best be defined through some of the main characteristics it has. However, one should also known that there are some general characteristics that everyone accepts as to what a family is and several others that are only accepted by groups of individuals as to what the family is. As such, both aspects need to be taken into consideration and discussed.
First of all, the family is judged to be the fundamental unity cell of society. From this perspective, the argument arises as to what degree this can be extended to a homosexual couple or whether this is simply something that should involve only a strict perspective, involving a husband and a wife who can thereafter reproduce and have children. A liberal society will point out towards the fact that a family can be formed of any two individuals and that any form of having children is permissive. However, there are numerous arguments against that perspective.
So, in this sense, some groups judge a family in a limited sense of the world, as previously mentioned, but there are also groups who consider the larger picture and a more inclusive framework.
It is difficult to support the argument according to which there is an universal form of family, but one can support the argument that the family types tend to converge at some point under the influence of the different challenges and elements of the modern and postmodern world. On one hand, the informational revolution, carrying along increased communication, limited the influence that parents can have on their children in all cultures and opened them up to face all or most realities of the world. With some notable exceptions where the Internet is still censored or restricted, children and young adolescents can browse the Internet and discover the world.
The newly discovered things help remove some of the dependency that the young member of the family has on his or her family. As he discovers the world, he is able to find out things on his own and better understand the realities in which he lives. At the same time, it is also likely that he will make some of the decisions on his own, without the dependency on family traditions or religious beliefs. Certainly, this varies from case to case and from country to country: in Japan, tradition is probably still more respected than in the United States, but the overall consideration is valid there as well.
On the other hand, the diversification of the economy and the changes that technology brought about also came with a change of mentality at the level of the entire society. This alters the role of the woman inside a family, to different degrees, but in all cultures. As previously mentioned, even in societies such as the Japanese one, women are now much more desiring to be educated, go to work and less inclined to focus on their traditional role in the household. With most families in the world, the household chores have become less and less an attribute of the woman, but rather something that the whole family is likely...
One of the main reasons why women are migrating today is the economic reason. The explanation for this relies in the difference between the wage that a woman can earn in her home country, even with a college education, and the wage she can earn in a third country, even on a lower position, such as a caretaker. As a result, a woman from a poorer country may prefer to migrate for an economic and temporary reason to a country where she will be paid more for the work done.
This is one of the consequences, as well as effects, of globalization. With the new economic global trends, increased communication and, often, an increased capacity to move more easily from one location to another, women find it easier to migrate than before. Perhaps one of the best examples is the European Union, where the freedom of movement across the 27 countries of the EU means that women from poorer member countries, such as the countries in the former Eastern and Central Europe, will be able to relocate for economical purposes to countries in the West, such as Italy and Spain.
The explanation of globalization and global interdependency also works the other way and is a cause to explain women migration. Developed countries find it harder to fully supply the work labor necessary for their needs and, as such, will rely on the import of foreign labor in order to cover this deficit. As a result, migration of labor is encouraged. With women being sought in different sectors, women migration tends to have a higher frequency than male migration does.
One of the most important consequences that migration has on the family is usually related to the impact on children. Children are often able to properly adjust to a family where the mother migrates in order to work abroad, but quite often there is a negative impact on their development. From direct studies and interviews, the main resulting idea was that "children of transnational families repeatedly stress that they lack the pleasure and comfort of daily interaction with their parents" (Ehrenreich, Hochschild, 2002-page 51). The implications of this are not necessarily those that they turn into negative elements for society, but it is true, at the same time, that their growth may be disturbed by lack of the closeness of their mother.
Nevertheless, one should definitely take into consideration the numerous positive contributions that migration, especially labor migration, has on the families. On one hand, the economic effect on the families back home is significant. The book mentions several cases in which the major recipients back home, the children, have managed to go to school and complete their superior education exactly because the migrating mothers were sending back home important financial resources for the children to be able to complete school and pursue better careers in their lives.
Overall, the effects of women migration is not always negative on the family and the local government can play a role in encouraging that this trend is followed in the future through programs meant to ensure that the migration of mothers is limited to a brief amount of time over the year and that the children are not affected in the meantime.
Bibliography
1. Roopnarine, Jaipaul. Gielen, Uwe. 2005. Families in Global Perspective. Pearson.
2. Ehrenreich, Barbara, Hochschild, Arlie Russell. 2002. Global Woman. Henry Holt and Company
