Abstract
The evolving reality of many adult children emigration from Nigeria may create an ‘empty-nests’ for many elders in the future; especially among the older academics. With a qualitative approach, this study conducted 60 in-depth interviews to: establish the proportion of older academics in the Southwestern Nigeria in relationship to their children living abroad; assess the general effects of such journeys on the emigrants and their parents, and finally, to seek ways of monitoring emigration abroad to deter an ‘empty-nest’ situation. The interviews revealed that less than one-fifth of the older academics had children abroad, a result of stronger “pull factors” from countries abroad than the “retention factors” in Nigeria, and jealousy among the children.