Family Values and Family Behaviours of the Descendants of Turkish Migrants in Germany

Research question/goal: 

This project investigates the fertility behaviour, partnership trajectories, and attitudes towards the family among descendants of Turkish immigrants in Germany. We distinguish between the so-called 1.5 generation (i.e., those who migrated as children) and the second generation (those who were born to Turkish migrants in Germany) and compare them to native Germans. Studying integration processes in this migrant group is particularly interesting for a number of reasons. First, this group is now reaching ages of 40 years and older (i.e., the end of the reproductive phase), and it is thus the first time that permanent childlessness and higher-order fertility can be analysed (while previous research had to focus mainly on first and second births). Second, with more than 2.5 million residents in Germany, it is the largest group of persons with foreign-born parents from a single origin country. Third, fertility levels, partnership behaviours, and family values in Turkey differ significantly from those in Germany – which is a precondition to analyse potential adaptation processes of migrant groups. For the empirical analyses, we use data from the German microcensus (waves 2005, 2009, 2013, and 2017), the Turkish oversample in the German Generations and Gender Survey (GGS), and the German sample of the Children of Immigrants Longitudinal Survey in Four European Countries (CILS4EU-DE).

Current stage: 

In a first step, we compared the share of married and unmarried individuals of the so-called first and second generation of Turkish immigrants with Ethnic German immigrants and native Germans using data from the German microcensus. Following this, we focus on the fertility behaviour of the descendants of Turkish immigrants in Germany. Two papers resulting from these analyses have been presented at online conferences, and one paper has been published.

Fact sheet

Funding: 
MZES
Duration: 
2020 to 2023
Status: 
discontinued
Data Sources: 
survey data
Geographic Space: 
Germany

Publications