Parenting in the second generation. The changing family figurations of descendants of Pakistani, Indian and Sri Lankan Tamil immigrants in Norway

ABSTRACT

This study explores how second-generation parents in Norway manoeuvre generational and institutional relationships and what consequences this may have for participation in ethnicity-based networks and majority society. The context is an advanced welfare state in which ideals of dual-earner, gender-equal and child-centred families are facilitated through provisions of care for the youngest children. We argue that second-generation families are moving towards a nuclear family model in which the dyadic bond between parents and children takes centre stage, strengthening dependency on institutions and networks in majority society and redefining dependencies on extended family and ethnicity-based networks. The transformed family and generational figuration become a means through which parents negotiate a position as established in Norwegian majority communities. The study contributes by highlighting parenting as a lens through which generational transformations and minority/majority relationships can be analytically bridged and by showing the relevance of Elias’ figurational sociology for understanding social integration processes.

KEYWORDS:

• Parenting
• minority parents
• established-outsider relations
• figurations
• generational relations
• second generation

Acknowledgements

We would like to thank the anonymous referees for fruitful comments. Thanks also to Prof. Janet Boddy of the University of Sussex, Prof. Eva Gulløv of the Aarhus University, and members of the Research Network “Parenting in the Nordics” for commenting on earlier drafts.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Ethics statement

Both studies were reported to the National Centre for Research Data. Interviews and data management were carried out following the guidelines for qualitative research set out by the Norwegian Committee for Research Ethics in the Social Sciences and Humanities.

Notes

1 By January 2022, Norwegian-born to Pakistani parents counted 18,116, compared to respectively 6,710 and 4,912 Norwegian-born to parents from Sri Lanka and India (Statistics Norway, Immigrants and Norwegian-born to immigrant parents. https://www.ssb.no/en/innvbef).

Additional information

Funding

The research was funded by UiO Nordic, the Norwegian Research Council and Norwegian Social Research, OsloMet.