Turkey’s grandchildren of guest workers across nine European countries are being surveyed and interviewed to reveal whether migration’s effects fade, persist, or transform by the third generation. This matters because existing research shows that Muslim-majority migrant groups integrate slowly or incompletely into Western Europe, but almost no data exists on the third generation—the grandchildren. Without that data, policymakers cannot know whether integration failures are temporary or entrenched across generations. ThirdGen will compare 4,672 grandchildren of Turkish guest workers—Europe’s largest non-EU diaspora, with over five million members—to their non-migrant counterparts in Turkey, using the unique 2000 Families dataset that traces 50,000 family members across three generations. The project examines socioeconomic attainment and family processes: intergenerational care, gender attitudes, religiosity, and behaviours. If successful, the findings could reshape integration policies across nine destination countries—Germany, the Netherlands, Belgium, France, Austria, the UK, Switzerland, Denmark, and Sweden—by revealing which patterns of disadvantage or adaptation are genuinely inherited versus reshaped by local conditions. The research is interdisciplinary, drawing on sociology, demography, social psychology, and migration studies, and aims to improve public understanding of migration’s long-term transformative impact.
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Research shows migrant groups from Muslim majority countries are either integrating slowly or not integrating fully into Western European destinations. The proposed comprehensive and novel research design will tackle this problem, looking at the seldom-studied third generation to reveal the enduring impact and transformative influence of migration. ThirdGen's dissimilation from origins conceptual perspective will shed light on generational change and continuity by comparing the grandchildren of migrants to their grandparents and non-migrant counterparts in the origin country: Turkey. It will consider multiple destinations: Germany, Netherlands, Belgium, France, Austria, UK, Switzerland, Denmark and Sweden. ThirdGen will examine grandchildren of Turkish guest workers, the largest non-EU diaspora with well over five million members in Europe. As the third generation is coming of age, ThirdGen will survey two gendered domains, namely socioeconomic attainment and family processes, i.e., intergenerational care, gender attitudes, religiosity and behaviours, comparing them to their non-migrant Turkish counterparts (ThirdGen dataset: N=4,672). The project will interview grandchildren identified in the unique 2000 Families dataset, tracing three generations of 50,000 migrant family members in Europe and non-migrants in Turkey. This innovative large-scale and multi-sited examination of the grandchildren of guest workers will generate invaluable data to address questions on the differential patterns and generic processes of intergenerational transmission with a special focus on the third generation across origin and destination countries. The project is interdisciplinary, drawing on sociology, demography, social psychology and migration studies. It will break new ground in integration and international migration studies, sociology, demography and psychology. The findings will inform policies and improve public understanding and awareness of the long-term transformative impact of migration.
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