Browsing by Author "Eliyas Taha"

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    Parental Migration in Urban Ethiopia: the Experiences of Children Left-Behind
    (Addis Abeba Universty, 2025-11-01) Eliyas Taha; Ashenafi Hagos
    Despite the huge flow of international labor migration, sub-Saharan Africa has not been given due consideration in the transnational family literature. There is a considerable flow of international labor migration from Ethiopia to economically prosperous countries. This study aimed to explore and understand the lived experiences and life tapestry of children left-behind by one or both parents in Addis Ababa and Adama. The constructivist paradigm was a philosophical underpinning of the study. A qualitative research approach with a phenomenological design was used to investigate this issue. The "new social studies of childhood" theory, which views children as active participants in shaping their lives and those around them, informed the study. Qualitative interviews were conducted with 25 participants who experienced parental migration. The findings of the study revealed that parental migration was unconcealed to have many significant effects on shaping and permeating children's lives and identities—their emotions, education, and living arrangements. Despite the children's spatiotemporal separation, Information and Communication Technology (ICT) was found to play a prominent role in fostering parent-child relationships. Children were also revealed to have more emotionally charged interactions with their migrant mothers than with their fathers. Parental migration also affects children's aspirations, specifically to be reunited with their migrant parent(s). This study contributes to broadening our understanding of children left-behind in Ethiopia and identifies social work services that require attention. Although there are many policies related to children in Ethiopia, in the existing policies, children left-behind need to be considered as a segment of the population that requires the most attention.