Graduate Trainee Profile:
Jenjira Yahirun
Graduate Trainee -Sociology
Advisor: Professors Judith Seltzer and Roger Waldinger
Year Entered Doctoral Program at UCLA: 2006
Undergraduate School/Major: George Washington University
Email: jyahirun@ucla.edu

Research:

My research focuses on intergenerational relationships within immigrant families across national contexts. Specifically, I am interested in the socio-demographic correlates of care (broadly defined) between later-life foreign-born persons and their adult children. My Masters thesis will examine the determinants of elderly return migration and specifically the role that children play in encouraging later-life parents to stay or leave the host country. Future research will expand upon this work to explore how later-life intergenerational relationships affect elderly well-being, moving beyond physical care (residence and financial help) to include social, health and psychological outcomes. I compare elderly immigrants and their children in the United States and Germany to further investigate the role of institutional support across different welfare regimes on intergenerational relationships..

Publications and conference presentations:

Yahirun, Jenjira. (2009, May) Homeward bound: Determinants of Return Migration among Germany's elderly immigrants. Poster Presented at the annual Population Association of America Conference, Detroit, Michigan.

Take Me "Home": Determinants of Return Migration among Later-Life Immigrants in Germany, Poster Presentation; Population Association of America Annual Conference, New Orleans, April 2008.

Speaking English Elsewhere: Determinants of Bilingualism and English Monolingualism amongst Hispanic Adults in California, Conference presentation; UCLA Graduate Student Conference on Migration and Race, April 2007.

Comparing Thai Marriage Migration in a Multi-National Framework: Family Reunification Policies in Denmark and Germany; Conference presentation; Changes in Migration Governance, Florence, Italy, December 2004.

Marriage Migration in Denmark, Country Study by Maria Gulicova-Grethe and Jenjira Yahirun, Working Paper Series published at the European Migration Centre, Berlin, December 2004.

Honors and awards:

UCLA-NSF IGERT Interdisciplinary Relationship Science Program Trainee (2008-2010)
American Sociological Association, Minority Fellowship Program Alternate (2008-2009)
First Prize, Population Association of America (PAA) Poster Competition (2008)
UCLA Graduate Summer Research Fellowship Program, Summer 2008
UCLA Graduate Research Mentorship Fellowship (2007-2008)
UCLA Graduate Summer Research Fellowship Program, Summer 2007
UCLA Eugene V. Cota-Robles Fellowship (2006-2007)
Congress-Bundestag Youth Exchange Fellowship, funded by the U.S. Department of State and the German Bundestag (2002-2003)

Current hobbies, interests, extracurricular activities:

Yoga, Cooking, Reading fiction, Practicing German, Dreaming about one day playing the cello
.