Received: 7 October 2020 Accepted: 4 July 2022 DOI: 10.1111/glob.12390 ORIGINAL ARTICLE Ageing, migration infrastructure and multi-generational care dynamics in transnational families Mengwei Tu Department of Sociology, East China University of Science and Technology, Shanghai, China Correspondence Mengwei Tu, Department of Sociology, East China University of Science and Technology, 130 Meilong Road, Xuhui District, Shanghai 200237, China. Email: mtu702@outlook.com Funding information National Office for Philosophy and Social Sciences, Grant/Award Number: National Social Science Fund of China [18CSH011] Abstract The analysis of transnational family relations from an inter- generational to a multi-generational perspective highlights the significant role migration infrastructure plays in transnational family care arrangements at different family life stages. Chang- ing migration policies and local-bound welfare systems in the host and home countries tend to fixate the role of care-receiver and provider against fluid transnational family care dynamics as the life course of the family unfolds. This paper focuses on Chinese transnational one-child families in which the initial sep- aration between parents and their only-child was motivated by the child’s overseas education, and followed by the adult child’s employment and family formation in the UK. My find- ings illustrate how reified definitions of the family and familial roles structure mobile individuals’ access to family rights in a transnational context. They warn of the danger of entrenched injustice embedded in the definitional classification of family migrants. KEYWORDS ageing, Chinese migration, highly skilled migrants, transnational fami- lies, transnational grandparents INTRODUCTION From 2001 to 2011, the number of tertiary-educated immigrants increased by 70% to reach 27 million in the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) countries (OECD-UNDESA, 2013). While much research has been conducted on talent mobility in the process of globalization, less is known about how institutional configurations of skilled mobility impact on skilled migrants’ family lives. In juggling family relationships and care © 2022 John Wiley & Sons Ltd. Global Networks. 2023;23:347–361. wileyonlinelibrary.com/journal/glob 347