Social Integration and Intermarriage in Europe

Islam, Partner-Choices and Parental Influence

Sarah Carol

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2016
• Print ISBN:
  9781472447418
• eBook ISBN:
  9781134806492
• Topic: Social Sciences
• Subtopic: Emigration & Immigration
• Index: Social Sciences

Intergroup friendships and marriages are regarded as the most important indicators of immigrants' social integration, as they represent the most intimate ties that can exist between minority and majority group members. Drawing on unique, large-scale, cross-national survey data, encompassing natives as well as Turkish, Moroccan, Pakistani and ex-Yugoslav migrants across several Western European countries, this book offers extensive analyses of intermarriage, as well as attitudes towards intermarriage and intergroup dating in general. Conceptualising the willingness or otherwise to marry outside one's ethnic or religious group in terms of social distance, Social Integration and Intermarriage in Europe provides new evidence that different conceptions of family life, gender relations and religiosity are crucial for understanding why individuals can be reluctant to engage in intergroup relationships. With attention to the question of the role played by state policies in explaining immigrant social integration, the book explores differences across Western Europe and the ways in which each state regulates immigration and the accommodation of Islam. A detailed and rigorous study of attitudes to intermarriage, social integration and the role of the state, Social Integration and Intermarriage in Europe will appeal to policy makers and scholars of within the social sciences, with interests in migration, interethnic relations and social integration.

Chapter 1
Introduction

In the 1960s, when guest-worker migration from countries with Muslim majorities peaked, Western European countries experienced economic growth and a demand for labour supply. Questions of integration were secondary. But more than 50 years later, Western European societies see themselves confronted with new challenges. Many Muslim Migrants have stayed in the receiving societies, become citizens, settled and brought up their children. The resulting ethnic and religious diversity have substantially affected the lives of both the new citizens and their descendants, as well as those of natives as Europe is today home to approximately 16 million Muslims (Laurence 2012). Novelist Zadie Smith expresses the situation of these migrants beautifully:

Because we often imagine that immigrants are constantly on the move, footloose, able to change course at any moment […] free of any kind of baggage, happy and willing to leave their difference at the docks and take their chances in this new place, merging with the oneness of this green and pleasant libertarian land of the free. […] Because this is the other thing about immigrants (’fugees, émigrés, travellers): they cannot escape their history any more than you yourself can lose your shadow.

(Smith 2001, 465–6)

As Smith writes, immigrants and their descendants do not leave their past behind; they enter a new society, which to some extent holds values and norms different from their own. This raises the question of whether Muslim migrants, their descendants and natives find themselves forming a unified society irrespective of their ethnic and religious origin.

The attempt of this book is to explain intergroup relationships between Muslim minorities and natives in Western Europe, also termed social integration. The book looks at marital and non-marital relationships (e.g. dating) and differentiates between relationships with members of different ethnic and religious groups (intergroup/exogamous/mixed relationships) and relationships with members of the same ethnic and religious group (intragroup or endogamous relationships). Drawing on unique survey data, which are described later in this chapter, two overarching questions will be answered in this book: first, which type of partner do individuals of various ethnic and religious backgrounds prefer and choose? Second, how can we explain partner choices of natives, immigrants and their descendants? I argue that we need to devote more attention to two factors: the family, in particular parents’ ideas about the appropriate spouse, what is often called the ‘core cultural values’, as well as religiosity if we want to explain group differentials in social integration. Migration automatically erodes neither family relationships and values nor religious belief systems. I thereby identify a key lacuna in migration research.

While previous research focused on the ethnic origin of minorities as explanation for various facets of integration, a shift in focus to the integration of religious minorities has taken place. A growing body of research discusses the relative significance of ethnic and religious origin in immigrant populations. religion has often been discussed as a primary cause of clashes (Eder et al. 2002, 40), as a medium showing social differences (Eder 2002) and as a potential obstacle to integration (Gordon 1964; Marx and O’Malley [1843–1844] 1977, 131). previous research has suggested that, in the formation of intimate relationships, the boundaries of religion are more important than those of ethnicity (e.g. Clycq 2012). In particular, Muslims are perceived as different compared to Christians (Lamont 2002). To learn how religion governs intergroup boundaries, we need to take into consideration the following four comparisons:

1. We have to compare the majority and minority group as it always takes two to tango. integration is not a one-side process and depends on the tolerance of majority and minority group members.
2. In contrast to prior research, this book entails a comparison of Muslim groups of different origin (Yugoslavs, mainly composed of Bosnians and Kosovo-Albanians, Turks, Moroccans and Pakistani) to overcome the homogenization of different muslim groups and thereby disentangle the effects of religion and ethnic origin.
3. We have to investigate intergroup relationships from a cross-national perspective as nation states have chosen remarkably different strategies for dealing with religion in general and Islam on a continuum between exclusion and inclusion of Islam. The different accommodation strategies may have resulted in stronger or weaker intergroup boundaries. The extent to which nation states accommodate Islam will be described in this chapter. I devote attention to different Western European countries.
4. Lastly, Muslim minorities are compared to non-Muslim minorities to test whether the influence of religiosity and families can be generalized to non-Muslim Minorities.

Interestingly, classical sociological thoughts on the role of religion can be read as contradicting the central claims of this book. While Weber (1930) proposed the existence of a trend towards secularization, and Allport (1979, 34) stated that the influences of family and religious membership have declined, recent studies on migration challenge Weber’s view of industrialization as the antecedent of secularization. Living in industrialized societies does not automatically erode belief systems (e.g. Maliepaard, Lubbers, and Gijsberts 2009) and values (Norris and Inglehart 2012). While blood ties are of crucial importance in Muslims’ countries of origin, members of most Western receiving societies strive for individual independence and achievements (Norris and inglehart 2012). These values may seem to stand in contrast to migrants’ experiences in their home countries. Distinct value patterns put immigrant children, especially, under pressure (Kwak 2003); in ethnically mixed neighbourhoods, migrant adolescents are more often at odds with their parents concerning their rights (Phinney and Vedder 2006). Distinct gender and family values may also have wider implications for establishing intergroup ties. Feelings of obligation to the family are related to the presence of siblings, children and spouses. Having relatives living close by or having face-to-face contact with them increases the resistance to intergroup relations. A higher level of normative family solidarity, meaning endorsement of family obligations and traditional family values, strengthens in-group favouritism and leads thereby to out-group rejection, which is measured by the resistance toward interethnic marriages (Huijnk 2011). this study has implications for intergroup ties and the question whether ethnicity and religion serve as criteria for the formation of intergroup relationships. Earlier studies of the United States, and to a lesser extent research on Europe, have indicated that race is used as a criterion in the context of dating and the rejection of out-group members. Parents and their children perceived race-based rejection to be more legitimate for intimate relationships than for non-intimate relationships (e.g. Killen et al. 2004).

The establishment of intimate and non-intimate relationships and the building of network ties to natives form one dimension of integration, called social integration. The social integration can be measured by intergroup contact, which is usually operationalized by means of intergroup friendships or marriages (Friedrichs and Jagodzinski 1999). Intermarriages (also called exogamous, intergroup and mixed marriages) are regarded as the most intimate link between groups, and are hence the strongest measure of social integration; they can in turn facilitate structural integration (Platt 2012; Meng and Gregory 2009). Following Kalmijn (1998), who examined intermarriage, as well as Martinovic (2010), who expanded Kalmijn’s (1998) approach to interethnic friendships, we can distinguish three mechanisms that explain social integration: opportunity structure, individual preferences and the interference of third parties. Theories focusing on geographical meeting opportunities have their origins in Blau, Blum and Schwartz’s (1982) socio-structural approach. according to this perspective, social contacts are a function of the social environment. This perspective is indispensible for my book, as far as the choice of a spouse is related to the ethnic composition of the network. Turkish and Moroccan Muslim migrants who have intraethnic friendships are more likely to prefer a co-religious spouse (Phalet, Gijsberts, and Hagendoorn 2008). Nauck, Kohlmann and Diefenbach (1997) assume that migrants who have interethnic marriages in their family tend to be more open towards interethnic friendships. indeed, Völker, Pinkster and Flap (2008) have shown that friends have been met via the family, and that the family context is important for the explanation of ethnic homogeneity in migrants’ networks.

Socio-psychological theories, on the other hand, emphasize individual preferences. Here we encounter the concept of homophily (Lazarsfeld and Merton 1954), which assumes that people with similar values and attitudes are likely to become involved with each other. This approach, too, is important in highlighting the possible influence of values held by the individual. These preferences do not arise in isolation from the surrounding milieu.

Third parties, for instance the family, church or community and state, shape our attitudes and behaviour. Consequently, this study addresses the question of how important these different institutional settings are. A study by Kalmijn and Flap (2001) suggested that mating often takes place in the context of institutional settings. Kinship systems, as one institution, regulate individuals’ life-course choices and expose them to the consequences of family members’ action (Elder 1995). Prescriptions and proscriptions with regard to partner choice differ across the globe. In some cultures a tie between two people involves the whole kinship network (Merton 1941). As Merton (1941) suggests, group norms may consequently affect intergroup contact. The interest of the church or community lies in avoiding a loss of members though interreligious marriage. Groups who have a major interest in securing cohesion, in particular, are motivated to counter the threats to that cohesion posed by mixed marriages (Kalmijn 1998). In some societies, marriage systems regulate partner choice and employ social control to ensure conformity. According to Merton (1941, 368) endogamous marriage ‘serves to maintain social prerogatives and immunities within a social group. It helps prevent the diffusion of power, authority and preferred status to persons who are not affiliated with a dominant group’. In practice, parents exert control over marriage decisions, for instance, by setting up meetings, giving advice about the candidates and playing the role of matchmaker.

Most research on families and their values has focused on the effects on psychological adaptation and health (Phinney, Berry, Vedder, et al. 2006), on structural or socio-cultural adaptation in terms of school adjustment, or on deviant behaviour (e.g. Berry et al. 2006; Zhou and Bankston 1994) rather than on intergroup contact. Less attention was paid to the relationship outlined above: between individuals and the family or community on the one hand and intergroup contact on the other. only recently has a growing body of research begun to explore this topic, although previous research by Phinney, Berry, Vedder et al. (2006) has shown that families and communities shape acculturation attitudes. additionally, qualitative research has revealed that the community deepens the gap between migrants and the receiving society by enforcing the norms of the country of origin. In Muslim groups this is especially prominent (Phinney, Berry, Vedder, et al. 2006; Hennink, Diamond, and Cooper 1999; Basit 1997). Among other things, the enforced norms prohibit interethnic friendships or, particularly for girls, involvement with boys, which could jeopardize their marriage prospects and thereby the family’s reputation (aAaca 2006; Hennink, Diamond, and Cooper 1999). The community influences the girl’s behaviour by causing her to fear comments and rumours (Becher 2008, 159; Hennink, Diamond, and Cooper 1999; Shaw 2000, 171). This sometimes leads parents to be strict, pressuring their children regarding dating behaviour to limit these contacts (Kecskes 2003, 205; phinney, Berry, Sam, et al. 2006, 8; Ross-Sheriff, Tirmazi, and Walsh 2007) and secure the family honour through control exerted by male family members (Ataca 2006; Shaw 2000, 165). Interestingly, in Turkey this phenomenon exists regardless of socio-economic status. Kecskes (2003) observed similar behaviour for daughters of Turkish migrants living in Germany. Parents put more pressure on their daughters than sons to conform to their ideas about sexuality, intergenerational relationships and abstention from alcohol.

Research findings suggest that opportunity structures and third-party influence intersect: the pressure exerted by the family and community to adhere to the values of the country of origin is higher in ethnically segregated neighbourhoods. According to the Census of 2001, Pakistanis in the United Kingdom live in neighbourhoods that are made up of 15 to 25 per cent of Muslims on average (Becher 2008, 14) and live close to relatives (Goodwin, Christakopoulou, and Panagiotidou 2006). Gillespie (1995, 168) observed that three-fourths of her respondents of South Asian origin perceive their environment as a close-knit community where nothing can be kept a secret and everybody watches what everybody else does. The high proximity thereby increases social control through gossip. In qualitative interviews respondents reported they would feel restricted by the code of izzat (feeling of obligation to protect one’s reputation, also termed honour) in all their decisions. In fact, those who live in ethnic neighbourhoods feel strong obligations towards their parents and are less inclined to integrate (Phinney, Berry, Sam, et al. 2006; Phinney, Berry, Vedder, et al. 2006).

In order to identify the strength of family bonds in migrant families in comparison to native ones, I draw on family models, which Kağıtçıbaşı (1996) termed the ‘model of interdependence’, the ‘model of independence’ and the ‘model of psychological interdependence’. The ‘model of interdependence’ stresses obedience and conformity; independence is perceived as a threat to family integrity. The ‘model of independence’ is common for Western Europe, where more emphasis is put on the children’s autonomy, while the third model emphasizes the emotional value of children. The first and the third model are more prominent in Asia, but modernization theory would lead one to expect changes, especially for migrants from urban areas or those living in wealthier environments. Assimilation theory also expects changes to take place, with the second generation, which has grown up in the receiving society, being more integrated than their parents. The foundation of this work is outlined in Chapter 2.

Along with the family and community, the state is considered as a third party (Kalmijn 1998). This research links integration policies and cultural accommodation to partner choices of migrants and natives. I analyse the extent to which cross-national differences between countries can be traced back to differences in integration policies and cultural accommodation of minorities.

Contexts of Origin: Immigrants from Morocco, Turkey, Pakistan and the former Yugoslavia

This research focuses on ex-Yugoslav (primarily from the Kosovo and Bosnia),¹ Turkish, Moroccan and Pakistani Muslim migrants in Belgium, Britain, Bermany and Switzerland. The number of Muslims among these migrants can only be approximated, because register data mostly lack information on the religious denomination of immigrants. Migrants from countries with a muslim majority make up a significant proportion of Western European populations. Almost five per cent of Germany’s population and about four per cent of the population in the United Kingdom, Belgium and Switzerland are from countries with a Muslim majority (Laurence 2012). In Belgium, the majority of migrants from countries with a large Muslim majority originate from Morocco and Turkey. In Germany, Turkish, ex-Yugoslav and Moroccan migrants are more common. In Switzerland, ex-Yugoslav and Turkish migrants are represented in higher numbers, and in Britain most migrants from countries with a Muslim-majority come from Pakistan.

The first post-war migration flows from countries with large Muslim populations started in the late 1950s and early 1960s, with guest workers, especially from Turkey, the former Yugoslavia and Morocco, in Belgium, Germany and Switzerland (Bade and Oltmer 2007; Caestecker 2007; Vuilleumier 2007). After a recruitment stop, migration generally took the form of family reunification. Some migrants from the former Yugoslavia, Pakistan and Turkey also came as political refugees. Refugees from Pakistan, especially in Germany, often belong to the Ahmadiyya community, which has been persecuted by the Pakistani government (Balzani 2006). The greatest influx of Pakistani migrants in Germany took place in the late 1970s (Statistisches Bundesamt 2013).

In the United Kingdom, migration from Pakistan became more prominent in the 1950s, after the independence of pakistan. They came primarily as workers. Until the early 1960s, Pakistanis were free to enter the country as members of the Commonwealth (Hansen 2000). Migration from Pakistan was accompanied by Turkish migration, starting in the mid-1950s, and Moroccan migration in the 1960s (Lunn 2007). The Turkish migrants who came in the 1950s were mainly from Cyprus, which became independent from Britain at that time. This wave was followed by single male workers in the early 1970s and another wave in the 1980s after the mil...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Title
• Copyright
• Contents
• List of Figures
• List of Tables
• Acknowledgements
• 1 Introduction
• 2 A Framework for the Study of Social Integration: The Nexus of Religion, Parental Influences and Partner Choice
• 3 An Overview of Partner Choices among Muslim Migrants and Natives in Western Europe
• 4 Intraethnic Marriage among Immigrant Children in Western Europe: Transnational Spouse or Co-Ethnic Spouse?
• 5 Intermarriage Attitudes among Minority and Majority Groups in Western Europe: The Role of Attachment to the Family, Religious In-Group and Perceived Distance
• 6 The Intergenerational Transmission of Intermarriage Attitudes and Interethnic Contact: The Role of Turkish Migrant Parents
• 7 Attitudes Towards Intergroup Dating among Youth in Brussels: More Evidence for the Role of Parents?
• 8 Conclusion
• Appendix
• Bibliography
• Index