Immigration, intermarriage and the changing face of Europe in the post war period

Abstract

In this article we compare the propensity to intermarry of various migrant groups and their children who settled in Germany, France, England, Belgium and the Netherlands in the post-war period, using a wide range of available statistical data. We try to explain different intermarriage patterns within the framework of Alba and Nee's assimilation theory and pay special attention to the role of religion, colour and colonial background. We therefore compare colonial with non colonial migrants and within these categories between groups with ‘European’ (Christian) and non-European (Islam, Hinduism) religions. First of all, religion appears to be an important variable. Migrants whose faith has no tradition in Western Europe intermarry at a much lower rate than those whose religious backgrounds correspond with those that are common in the country of settlement. The rate of ethnic endogamous marriages in Western Europe are highest in Hindu and Muslim communities, often regardless if they came as guest workers or colonial migrants. Whereas differences in religion diminish the propensity to intermarry, colour or ‘racial’ differences on the other hand seem to be less important. This is largely explained by the pre-migration socialisation. Furthermore, the paper argues that the attention to institutions, as rightly advocated by Richard Alba and Victor Nee, needs a more refined and layered elaboration. Institutions, often as barriers to intermarriage, do not only emanate from the receiving society, but also—be it less formalized—within migrant communities. Especially religions and family systems, but also organized nationalist feelings, can have a profound influence on how migrants think about endogamy. Finally, strong pressures to assimilate, often through institutionalized forms of discrimination and stigmatization, not only produce isolation and frustrate assimilation (with resulting low intermarriage rates), but can also stimulate assimilation by 'passing' mechanisms. These factors, together with a more comparative perspective, are not completely ignored in the new assimilation theory, but—as this study of Western European intermarriage patterns stresses—deserve to be included more systematically in historical and social scientist analyses.

Keywords:

• Migration
• Immigration
• Intermarriage
• Mixed marriages
• Netherlands
• Belgium
• France
• United Kingdom
• Germany
• Ethnicity
• Race
• Religion
• Gender
• Islam
• Muslims
• Italians
• Moroccans
• Turks
• Surinamese
• Indians
• Bangladeshi
• Pakistani
• West Indians
• Algerians
• Portuguese
• Spaniards
• Greeks
• Yugoslavians
• Colonial migration
• Colonialism
• Guest workers
• Labour migration

Notes

1 For France Tribalat (1995); for Germany Venema and Grimm (2002). For the United Kingdom, Dale and Holdsworth (1997) and Modood and Berthoud (1997); and for the Netherlands Hooghiemstra (2003, p. 3–4).

2 With the immigration of Islamic migrants after World War II religion, linked to ethno-cultural perceptions, has again acquired a master status to use Hughes terminology: Hughes (1945).

3 Glick (1976) called this the ‘marriage squeeze’: Glick, American families. See also Tables 9 and 14 in the Appendix A.

4 The British Isles taken together, for example, have remained rather isolated already since the early modern period, with many people leaving, but relatively few entering until the mid 20th century: van Lottum (2007), Lunn (2007).

5 This includes colonial migrants from mixed descent born in the colonies: Bosma (2007).

6 There is no systematic study, let alone an international comparison, but many case studies give ample indications that mixed marriages were not uncommon: Lucassen (2005a, p. 123). See also van der Harst and Lucassen (1998, p. 136). For Algerians see Rosenberg (2006, p. 135–138).

7 They only briefly refer to Jews (Alba & Nee, 2003, p. 92).

8 This phenomenon is only mentioned once (Alba & Nee, 2003, p. 61).

9 Portuguese in the Netherlands established their own parishes, because they did not feel at home in Dutch Catholic churches. Not only because of the language barrier but also because their version of Catholicism differed from the Dutch traditions: Laarman (2007).

10 Unfortunately the rates on Belgium (in 1991) are a mixture of the first and second generation (see Table 4 in the Appendix A).

11 For an exception to the isolationist tradition, see: Foner (2005); and Foner and Fredrickson (2004).