This paper compares the partnership arrangements of Turkish and Ethnic Germanimmigrants (i.e., return migrants from Ethnic German communities from predominantlyEastern European countries), the two largest migrant groups in Germany, and nativeGermans. Most existing analyses of migrants’ partnershipsfocus on intermarriage,marriage formation, or union dissolution. We know only a little, however, about theprevalence of non-marital living arrangements. Given thatsingle person households andcohabitation are widespread phenomena mainly in post-materialist societies, analyzingwhether immigrants engage in these behaviors sheds light onpotential adaptationprocesses. The analyses are based on the German Microcensusof the years 2009 and2013, with a focus on adults in the 18–40 age group. First, we present descriptive findingson the prevalence of partnership arrangements of immigrants and native Germans.Second, we estimate cross-sectional regressions with the partnership arrangement asthe outcome variable in order to control for compositional differences between immigrantgroups with respect to education. Our results show that while the vast majority offirst-generation immigrants are married, the share of married natives is considerablysmaller. Living in an independent household without a partner and cohabitation are rarephenomena among immigrants. By contrast, about one in sevennatives is cohabitingand more than one quarter is living in an independent household without a partner. Themost prevalent partnership living arrangement of the Turkish second generation is livingin the parental household without a partner. These results are robust after controlling foreducation, age, and year in the multiple regression analysis.
