The contributions stress the heterogeneity among migrants’ family life, and the need for more research and targeted policies. Concretely, four key messages are to be considered:
- Migrants’ family life trajectories differ by society of origin and are also shaped by the institutional, policy and welfare context of the society of destination. More research using longitudinal data is needed for advancing our understanding of migrants’ attitudes and behaviours in the realm of family life and for providing informed advice to policymakers and organizations aiming to improve migrants’ living conditions and the life chances of their children.
- The Generations and Gender Programme is excellently positioned to promote comparative studies of migrants’ family life trajectories. Their cross-national structure allows not only to compare populations from different origins within countries and to compare the same migrant group across different destination countries, but also to compare the migrant minority in the host country with their non-migrant co-nationals in the country of origin.
- Spatial segregation, limited proficiency in the host country language and limited social exchange with the majority population hinder the integration of migrants and their descendants even in the long-term.
- Societies should better support migrant families in accessing childcare services and breaking social isolation at older ages.
Contents:
- Introduction Judith Koops and Teresa Castro Martin
- Do the Descendants of Immigrants Become Adults Sooner or Later than Native-born? Evidence from the French Generations and Gender Survey. Roberto Impicciatore and Ariane Pailhé
- Migrant Families in the German Generations and Gender Survey. Johanna Schütz and Robert Naderi
- Families of Poles in the Netherlands: New Data to Study Migrants’ Family Dynamics and Social Networks in a Comparative Setting. Alzbeta Bartova, Kasia Karpinska, Nina Conkova and Tineke Fokkema
- Childbearing and Family Formation of Russian-Origin Migrants in Estonia. Leen Rahnu
- Conclusions Teresa Castro Martin and Judith Koops