Special Collection 18

Partnership dynamics among immigrants and their descendants in Europe

Published 06 July 2016

This Special Collection of Demographic Research – edited by Hill Kulu and Tina Hannemann – investigates partnership formation and dissolution among immigrants and their descendants in five European countries. The studies use longitudinal data and apply event history analysis. The analysis shows significant differences in partnership formation and dissolution among immigrants in all five countries. Immigrants from regions with ‘conservative’ partnership patterns (e.g., Turkey, North Africa and South Asia) have high marriage rates, low cohabitation levels and are less likely to separate. By contrast, ‘fluid’ family formation patterns dominate among some non-European immigrant groups (e.g., Caribbeans, Sub-Saharan Africans and Latin Americans). The significant diversity of partnership patterns within countries across immigrant groups supports that socialisation factors play an important role in their partnership behaviour. The partnership patterns of the descendants of immigrants are ‘in-between’. For some groups, they resemble those of their parents; for others, the patterns are similar to those of the native population. These findings support the idea that both the minority subculture and the mainstream society influence the behaviour of minority groups. All five studies report a significant diversity of partnership patterns across ethnic minority groups and suggest that the diversity in family forms will persist in the future. To conclude, the studies of this Special Collection show how various individual and contextual factors shape partnership behaviour of immigrants and their descendants and promote their social integration. This Special Collection of Demographic Research has received funding from the European Union’s Seventh Framework Programme (FP7/2007−2013) under grant agreement no. 320116 for the research project FamiliesAndSocieties.

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