Romania: Transnational Care Choices

04.12.2025

How does the experience of care workers employed in different EU countries impacts their care arrangements within their own families back at home? This episode tackles the narratives of abandonment of the elderly as a result of labour mobility from Romania, looks into the policy responses linked to transforming standards of elderly care and the rising role of the nursing homes.

GUEST of the episode:

Neda Deneva-Faje

Neda is a social anthropologist, working on carework, transnational families, transformations of labour, and social citizenship. She is a senior researcher at Babes-Bolyai University, Cluj-Napoca, Romania, in the framework of the CareOrg project.

	Photo credits: Dana Domsodi and Sorin Gog
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------ (2017). “Flexible Kin-Work, Flexible Migration: Aging Migrants Caught between Productive and Reproductive Labour in the European Union”, in Transnational Aging and Kin-Work, edited by Parin Dossa and Cati Coe. New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press
------ (2023( “Mobile people versus static institutions: national policies and the lifecourse of transnational grandparents” in Life Course, Work and Labour: Historical, Sociological and Anthropological Perspectives, edited by Josef Ehmer and Carola Lentz De Gruyter: Oldenbourg
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Dohotariu, A. and I. Baluta (2021) Care in post-socialist Romania: Between gendered regulations, silencing and political concerns. The Romanian Journal of Society and Politics VOL. 1 5 NO. 2
Földes, I. (2016) “Elderly parents, adult children and the Romanian transnational family: An intergenerational solidarity approach”, Studia Universitatis Babes-Bolyai-Sociologia 61(1): 77-107
------. (2020) “Linked Lives across Borders: Economic Remittances to Ageing Parents in Romania” Comparative Population Studies 45: 65-8
Ghenţa, M, A. Matei, L.Mladen-Macovei, E.Bobârnat (2020) - Calitatea vieţii persoanelor vârstnice dependente în România, Bucureşti : Editura Universitară
Ghenta, Mihaela et al. (2020). Perceptions regarding the quality of life among beneficiaries of home and residential care services. Journal of Economic Development, Environment and People, [S.l.], v. 9, n. 1, p. 71-78, mar. 2020. ISSN 2285-3642. doi:http://dx.doi.org/10.26458/jedep.v9i1.658.
Ghenta, M.; Matei, A.; Mladen-Macovei, L.; Vasilescu, M.D.; Bobârnat, E.-S. (2021) Sustainable Care and Factors Associated with Quality of Life among Older Beneficiaries of Social Services. Sustainability, 13, 1572. https://doi.org/10.3390/su13031572
Hărăguș, M., Ducu, V., Földes, I. (2021). Intergenerational relations in the context of migration: gender roles in family relationships, in Castrén, MA., Česnuitytė, V., Crespi, I., Gauthier, JA., Gouveia, R., Martin, C., Moreno, A., Suwada, K. (Eds.) Handbook of Sociology of Families in Europe, Palgrave Macmillan, pp. 495-512
Hărăguș, M., Telegdi-Csetri, V. (2018) Intergenerational Solidarity in Romanian Transnational Families, in Crespi, I., Merla, L., Meda, S.G. (Eds.) Making multicultural families in Europe: gender and generational relations, Palgrave Macmillan, pp. 161-177
Hărăguș, M., Földes, I. (2020). The Demographic Profile of Rural Areas. Calitatea Vieții Sănduleas, A. B., L. Mladen-Macovei, C. Stroe, M. Ghenţa. Analiza oportunității dezvoltării de servicii-suport și scheme de finanțare destinate îngrijitorilor informali ai persoanelor vârstnice cu nevoi de îngrijire de lungă durată și propunerea de măsuri de ajustare a politicilor destinate sprijinirii îngrijirii informale, Ministerul Muncii şi Justiţiei Sociale, 20.08.2018 31(4):289-317
Hărăguş, M., Földes, I. (2020) Grandparental Role in Romanian Transnational Families. Romanian Journal of Population Studies 14(1): 87-112.
Ivancheva, M., S. Eneva, St.Tetevenski, N. Konstantinova, A, Angelova, D, Kokonova, K, Drenska (2025) Who Cares? Feminised care labour and the crisis of social reproduction in post-socialist Bulgaria, LevFem, ISBN: 978-619-92174-5-0
Sănduleas, A.B., L. Mladen-Macovei, C. Stroe, M. Ghenţa. (2020) Analiza oportunității dezvoltării de servicii-suport și scheme de finanțare destinate îngrijitorilor informali ai persoanelor vârstnice cu nevoi de îngrijire de lungă durată și propunerea de măsuri de ajustare a politicilor destinate sprijinirii îngrijirii informale, Ministerul Muncii şi Justiţiei Sociale, contract nr. 3209 din 20.08.2018
Ungureanu, M-I., M . G. Brınzac, A. Forray, L. Paina, L. Avram, D. A. Crisan, V. Donca (2020). The geriatric workforce in Romania: the need to improve data and management, European Journal of Public Health, Vol. 30, No. Supplement 4, iv28–iv31

Romania: Transnational Care Choices

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