Co-residence of adult children with their parents: differences by migration background explored and explained

ABSTRACT

Research on majority populations throughout Europe showed strong attachment and exchange of support between parents and their adult children. Studies on migrant families are limited yet needed in light of the increasing share of older people of migrant origin in European populations. One of the main sources of intergenerational support and care is via coresidence of (older) parents and their adult children. In this paper, we first analyse whether co-residence of adult children with their parents differs between migrants and non-migrants across Europe. Second, we assess the potentially differential effect of resources and socio-demographic factors among the migrant and non-migrant population as well as migrant-specific factors (migrant generation and region of origin). Data on five countries, with different migration patterns and histories, covered in the first wave of the Generation and Gender Survey are used (Austria, Belgium, France, Germany, and the Netherlands). Results show that levels of adult child–parent co-residence do not vary significantly by migrant status but do differ across Europe. Furthermore, we find that socio-demographic factors are important and have a similar association with parent–child coresidence for migrants and non-migrants. Our study does, however, suggest differences in co-residence by region of origin and migrant generation.

KEYWORDS:

• Immigrants
• Europe
• intergenerational co-residence
• gender and generation survey

Acknowledgements

We gratefully acknowledge the feedback by two anonymous reviewers and the guest editors on the earlier version of our work. We also thank the participants at the international workshop on ‘Intergenerational Transfers and Immigrant Population’ held at the University of Bologna, Italy in September 2015, where a preliminary version of this paper was presented for their suggestions.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes

1. http://appsso.eurostat.ec.europa.eu/nui/show.do?dataset=yth_demo_030&lang=en, accessed on 27 April 2016.

2. http://unstats.un.org/unsd/methods/m49/m49regin.htm, accessed on 27 April 2016.

Additional information

Funding

The work of the first author is part of and financed by the European Research Council, Starting Grant Project [number 26.38.29] ‘Families of Migrant Origin: A Life Course Perspective’ (FaMiLife).