Union Formation of the children of immigrants: Does the ethnic composition of the childhood neighbourhood matter?

Gusta Wachter , Netherlands Interdisciplinary Demographic Institute (NIDI)/KNAW/University of Groningen
Rafael Costa , Netherlands Interdisciplinary Demographic Institute (NIDI)-KNAW/University of Groningen

Compared to immigrants, union formation of the children of immigrants is typically more similar to that of the majority population. This is generally attributed to the, at least partial, socialization of the second generation in the majority culture. Although studies generally compare the second generation to the majority population on a national level, the degree to which second-generation individuals are socialized in the majority culture depends on the local context in which they grow up. Growing up surrounded by large shares of majority-group members—and being socialized with them— may make the union formation of the second generation more similar to that of majority group peers. However, the local residential contexts during childhood have been overlooked in previous studies. Using full population register data from statistics Netherlands, we estimate multinomial event-history models to examine the timing and type of first union (direct marriage or unmarried cohabitation) as a function of the proportion of majority-group residents in the neighbourhood at age 15. Neighbourhoods are measured at 3 levels of scale using an innovative method. We focus on all Turkish (3,963), Moroccan (3,819), and Surinamese (4,485) second-generation individuals born in the Netherlands in 1986 and follow their union formation from age 18 to 32. Our findings indicate that the ethnic composition of the childhood neighbourhood influences first union formation differently across origin groups. Especially the proximate neighbourhood seems of importance. We conclude that there is a need to take a more local approach when studying the union formation of the second generation.

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 Presented in Session 4. Migrant Populations: attitudes and contextual factors