Irregular Migration and Invisible WelfareIrregular Migration and Invisible Welfare, by AmbrosiniMaurizio. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2013. 247 pp. $95.00 cloth. ISBN: 9780230343160.

dren are apt to resent their mothers for leaving but not their fathers. Some live in limbo, setting their sights on going to the United States and disinvesting from their lives in El Salvador. Regarding economic well-being, Abrego relies on El Salvadoran children’s and U.S. parents’ reports, using measures like access to schooling and food as well as improved housing and increased comforts. She divides children and families into three groups: ‘‘Barely Subsisting,’’ ‘‘Surviving,’’ and ‘‘Thriving.’’ Abrego finds that about half of all children are thriving and 15 percent are barely subsisting. She finds that women remit more consistently and send back larger shares of their income. ‘‘More than half of children in mother-away families received relatively large and consistent remittances’’ (p. 109). Children with both parents away do the best: 62 percent are thriving, compared to 55 percent of children in mother-away households and 36 percent in father-away households. One oversight in the analysis is that Abrego does not discuss the well-being of households prior to migration. I assume that the well-being findings reflect socioeconomic status prior to migration. Indeed, Abrego interviewed middle-class and working-class households. Thus, the contribution of remittances to family well-being would be best measured relative to the well-being of the family prior to migration. In addition, given the complexity of household situations, it is important to know who else was living in these ‘‘left behind’’ households and what other kinds of resources they had. Perhaps mother-away households benefitted from the resources of grandparents or other family members, whereas father-away households did not. Also, half of the ‘‘children’’ to whom Abrego talks are over 18, which brings up the question of parental responsibility over the life course. Are parents obligated to remit to their adult children? If so, for how long? Despite these concerns, this is a valuable book because Abrego skillfully illuminates the complexity of family migration from El Salvador and the far-reaching impacts of undocumented status and gender on the well-being of immigrant families. She shines light on the hardships of migration, borne mostly by immigrant women and children ‘‘left behind.’’ It should be noted that the family separation that Abrego describes is one of many different forms of separation tied to U.S. immigration policies. According to Human Rights Watch there are more than 1.6 million persons separated from families due to U.S. deportation (http:// www.hrw.org/node/82173). Moreover, another form of family separation occurs before international migration: separation due to nonmarital fertility or parental separation. As Abrego shows, there are great disadvantages in the United States for women who are heads of households, undocumented immigrants, and primary breadwinners. However, there is an important caveat. Despite the hardships of separation, immigration, and settlement in the United States, many women do manage to help their family members by sending remittances and, in some cases, gaining legal status. Although they are between a rock and a hard place, immigration is a better option for most than remaining at home.