Union Formation and Partner Choice
in a Transnational Context: The Case
of Descendants of Turkish Immigrants
in France1
Nadja Milewski
Institute for Sociology and Demography, University of Rostock
Christelle Hamel
French National Institute for Demographic Studies (INED)
This paper examines the transition to a first union of descendants of
Turkish immigrants in France. We use data from the project The Integration of the European Second Generation, 2007, and apply eventhistory techniques. We find that descendants of Turkish immigrants
who grew up in France enter a first union earlier and more often in a
direct marriage than do young adults without an immigrant background. We then describe the type of union in more detail and estimate the likelihood of a transnational partner choice, that is, between
a young adult born in France of Turkish immigrant parentage and an
immigrant from Turkey. We pay attention to social factors such as
education, city of residence, and to cultural factors such as the rules of
affinity in Turkey and the attachment to the norm of virginity at marriage as factors that orient partner choice. Finally, we discuss what
anthropological methods could contribute to this research.
1
The TIES project is coordinated by Maurice Crul and Jens Schneider from the Institute
for Migration and Ethnic Studies (IMES) at the University of Amsterdam. The French
part of the TIES project was supervised by Patrick Simon and Christelle Hamel at the
National Institute for Demographic Studies (INED). The French fieldwork was funded by
the Volkswagen-Stiftung, INED, and the city hall of Paris. We are grateful for the discussions with the participants of the TIES project and in particular to Helga de Valk, Patrick
Simon, Arnaud Bringe, and Stephanie Condon as well as for the valuable language editing
by Catriona Dutreuilh. The first author’s work in the TIES project has been funded
within a Marie-Curie Research Training Network of the European Commission. This
paper was first presented at the 2nd Workshop of the EAPS Working Group on The
Anthropological Demography of Europe ‘‘Beyond national boundaries: Migration and
transnationality in Europe’’, Paris, December 2007.
2010 by the Center for Migration Studies of New York. All rights reserved.
DOI: 10.1111/j.1747-7379.2010.00820.x
IMR Volume 44 Number 3 (Fall 2010):615–658
615
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International Migration Review
INTRODUCTION
Large-scale immigration has been changing the face of Western Europe
and its demographic trends in recent decades. The immigrant populations
and the migration flows are themselves changing. Whereas the immigration of workers coming mainly from former colonies and from Southern
European countries dominated from the 1950s until the beginning of the
1970s, family-related migration developed from the 1970s, as well as refugee and asylum-seeking migration from 1980.
Immigrants contribute to make Western European countries culturally more diverse, and immigrants’ descendants born in the countries of
settlement constitute a growing share of the young adults living in the
metropolitan areas today. Descendants of immigrants have to manage the
differences between their parents’ culture of origin and the culture of
the society in which they have been raised. In this multi-cultural context,
union-formation behaviors can be seen as a highly appropriate topic of
research for the study of the way immigrants’ children combine the
norms and values of two socio-cultural areas. Yet, little is known about
the matrimonial behaviors of the women and men of immigrant parentage in Western Europe. Our paper aims at expanding this knowledge by
focusing on the transition to a first union of young adults of Turkish descent living in France. We concentrate on descendants of Turkish immigrants because they form the most dispersed immigrant group living in
today’s Europe and because most of the studies find considerable differences between Turkish immigrants and the respective host populations
concerning family-formation trends and cultural maintenance. Moreover,
France ranks second as destination country of Turkish emigrants after
Germany (Manço, 2005; De Tapia, 2006). It has, however, not been
studied in detail yet as researchers working on immigrants with quantitative data generally concentrate on the bigger immigrant groups living in
France.
The perspective of research we follow in this paper focuses on the
combination of qualitative and quantitative analysis, and on cultural
patterns as an explanation for practices, in line with the anthropological
demography perspective (Bernardi and Hutter, 2007; Johnson-Hanks,
2007). We actually think that this combination of qualitative and
quantitative methods is particularly relevant to understanding matrimonial practices of descendants of immigrants who live in a multi-cultural
Union Formation and Partner Choice in a Transnational Context
617
and a multi-national context. Union formation is a classic topic of
demographic research that especially focuses on the age at first union
and on the type of union (marriage or cohabitation) and, for anthropologists, that pays attention to the rules of affinity in countries where the
choice of partner is regulated by norms other than individual choice.
For the study of matrimonial practices in a migration context, the
anthropological demography approach is particularly relevant and useful.
This is the reason why we will concentrate on these three dimensions of
matrimonial behaviors: the timing and type of first union (marriage or
cohabitation) as well as the partner’s origin with respect to his ⁄ her
migration background.
The structure of the paper is as follows: We start by sketching
the history of Turkish immigration to France and by giving an overview of the current patterns of union formation in both France and
Turkey. We then review the scientific literature regarding union formation and partner choice and summarize research that has been carried
out on the union formation of young adults of Turkish origin living
in other Western European destination countries, as well as of
other young adults of immigrant origin living in France. Following
this, we develop our research hypotheses, by focusing on the respective
contributions of quantitative and qualitative research on these same
topics.
Our study applies to a new and original dataset that describes the
living conditions of young people of Turkish descent in France union. The
survey is part of an international project called The Integration of the
European Second Generation (TIES). It is the first time that a quantitative survey has been carried out on the Turkish-descent population in
France.
BACKGROUND OF THE RESEARCH
The Turkish Population in France
Around 3.6 million Turkish citizens live abroad, of which 3.2 million live
in Europe (De Tapia, 2006). Turks form the most dispersed immigrant
group in Western European countries. There are 4,959,000 first-generation immigrants in total in France, representing 8 percent of the total
population in 2008. The main immigrant groups in France are Algerians,
Moroccans, Portuguese, Italians, and Turks. The number of Turkish
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immigrants is 222,000 (Borrel, 2006; INSEE, 2008b). Turkish immigrants started settling in France at the end of the 1960s, but this immigration flow increased in the 1980s because of political disturbances in
Turkey. Turkish immigrants in France are on average less educated than
they are, for example, in Germany, as the West German recruitment strategies for so-called guest workers included a selection of foreign workers
based on their levels of qualification, which was only the case in a later
period in France (De Tapia, 2006; Insel et al., 2003). Thus, immigrants
from Turkey to France are more likely to come from rural areas, especially from central Anatolia. Immigration flows from Turkey are currently
increasing faster than flows from Algeria and Morocco. Among first-generation immigrants from Turkey, 27 percent have French nationality, compared to 40 percent of the entire immigrant population living in France
(INSEE, 2008b). This low percentage may be partly because of the fact
that the Turkish immigration is relatively recent. Indeed, 62 percent of
Turkish immigrants are below age 40 (INSEE, 2008b), so their children
are only now reaching adulthood. Hence, union formation is becoming a
concern in their life and an important issue for both themselves and their
family.
Union Formation in France and Turkey
What do we know about practices of union formation in France and in
Turkey, and what are the similarities and differences between them? As in
the case of Turkish immigrants coming to Western Europe, two distinct
family-culture patterns are brought into contact as the family structures
vary considerably between these two regions and nuptiality behaviors in
the two countries are very different. Among these differences are the universality of marriage, a relatively young age at leaving the parental home,
and a very low prevalence of non-marital cohabitation in Turkey (Reher,
2004; Sunar and Fisek, 2005). Nevertheless, some slow changes are under
way: according to the 2003 Turkish Demographic and Health Survey, the
median age at first marriage was 21 for women aged 25–29 in 2003,
while it was 19.2 for women aged 45–49 the same year, which corresponds to a 2-year increase in 20 years (HUIPS, 2004:91). This relatively
young age at union formation is correlated with the low mean level of
educational attainment.
By contrast, France – like other European countries – has experienced substantial changes in union formation practices during recent
Union Formation and Partner Choice in a Transnational Context
619
decades that contrast sharply with the Turkish matrimonial pattern.
Demographers have identified three major trends there. The first is the
delay in the transition to adulthood, as defined in terms of leaving the
parental home, completing education, and being financially independent.
The second is the increase in the ages at first union and at first birth. The
third major change is the remarkable decline of marriage. These three
phenomena are strongly interrelated. Until the beginning of the 1970s,
young people left the parental home when they got married and started
to cohabit with their spouse. At that time, fewer than one out of five couples started to cohabit without being married (Prioux, 2003). The massive
increase in the number of children attending secondary school and following higher education led to an increase in the age at leaving parental
home, getting a job, and forming a union, while marriage started to be
seen as an overly conservative institution. Among the cohorts born
between 1944 and 1955, half of the individuals had already formed their
first union at age 24.6 years while the cohort born in 1971 had formed
their first union at age of 26 (Prioux, 2003). In 1996, nine couples out of
ten started living together without being married. Moreover, a large proportion of couples are unlikely to get married at all (Toulemon, 1996).
Using the French Generations and Gender Survey, Sebille confirms these
trends and indicates that the postponement of the transition to adulthood
is still an ongoing process as some young French adults start their life in
a partnership by forming long-term stable couples without cohabitation
(Sebille, 2009). She also notes that although the age at leaving the parental home is quite stable, the reasons for leaving home have nonetheless
changed radically, as young adults no longer leave their parents home to
get married but to study. They start their adult life by a long period of
living alone, with financial support from their parents, and possibly being
in a non-cohabiting couple.
Descendants of immigrants face a challenging situation, in particular
when it comes to union formation, as the choice of a partner and of living arrangement are fields where culture, values, and norms dominate the
scene. Portes and Zhou (1993:75) emphasize that ‘‘Growing up in an
immigrant family has always been difficult, as individuals are torn by conflicting social and cultural demands, while they face the challenge of entry
into an unfamiliar and frequently hostile world.’’ The bigger the cultural
differences between the immigrants and the majority population, the more
acute the conflicts are liable to be. Women and men of immigrant parentage have to find their pathway to adulthood by choosing from or between
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elements of two cultural heritages under societal circumstances that may
be in contradiction with cultural traditions. Foner (1997) calls this challenge a ‘‘bicultural adjustment’’.
Given these differences between France and Turkey, studying the
patterns of first union formation of immigrants’ descendants is particularly pertinent and ties in closely with the perspectives and purposes of
anthropological demography. In order to put our research questions we
start with a review of the scientific literature on union formation and
partner choice in the Turkish population in Turkey and in Europe, paying attention to the respective contributions of both quantitative and
qualitative methods.
Turkish Immigrants’ Union-Formation Practices in Emigration
Countries
The only available dataset on careers and life conditions of immigrant
descendants in France that allows the study of matrimonial behavior is
the ‘‘Mobilité géographique et insertion sociale’’ survey [Geographical
Mobility and Social Integration Survey] conducted in 1992.2 Descendants
of Turkish immigrants in France were not included there as they had not
reached the respective ages by that time. As a result, our knowledge from
quantitative surveys on this population is rather limited and does not concern matrimonial behavior but rather education and employment (Simon,
2003). For this literature review, we therefore look mainly at data regarding Turkish immigrants’ children in other European countries as well as
data regarding other young adults of immigrant parentage living in
France. We organized this review of the scientific literature by focusing
on the main topics explored by the quantitative surveys: first the origin of
the partner, second the timing of the first union, third the type of union
(marriage or cohabitation).
Partner’s Origin and Migration Background. The international literature
has concentrated primarily on the homogamy ⁄ heterogamy of couples with
respect to their nationality or their migration background, and religious
2
A new national survey on Immigrants and descendants of immigrants, titled Trajectoires
et Origines: enquête sur la diversité des populations de France, coordinated by French
National Institute for Demographic Studies and by French National Statistical Institute
was conducted in 2008.
Union Formation and Partner Choice in a Transnational Context
621
affiliations. The choice of partner is influenced by three major domains,
namely individual preferences, the norms for interactions of the social
groups to which the (potential) partners belong, and the structure of the
marriage market (Kalmijn, 1998). With respect to national origin or
migration background, the patterns of mixed marriages vary between
national-origin groups, destination countries, and period.
Evidence for national homogamy between spouses has been found
both in actual behavior as well as in studies on preferences. With a rate of
more than 80 percent, the Turkish population abroad shows particularly
high rates of homogamy as compared to immigrants of other origins. This
result applies to both the first and the second generations. In the countries
where data are available on Turkish-origin children born and raised in
Western Europe, it appears that the rate of transnational marriages with a
Turkish immigrant is lower than for the first generation but higher than
for other young adults of immigrant parentage (Tribalat, 1996; for
France; Roloff, 1998; Milewski, 2003; for Germany; Lievens, 1999; and
Timmermann, 2008, for Belgium; de Valk, 2008, for The Netherlands;
Lucassen and Laarman, 2009).
The endogamous partner choice of first-generation migrants with
respect to the country of origin appears somewhat self-explanatory as, for
example, marriage arrangements may have been made prior to the migration of either of the partners, and the structure of the marriage market
for the first immigration waves was usually characterized by a very imbalanced sex ratio (cf. Lievens, 1999). In addition, labor migrants may have
perceived their stay abroad as temporary. Therefore, a spouse from the
same country of origin may appear more reasonable. But even for those
immigrants who arrived single in France, the rate of mixed marriages
remains low. In 1992, the ‘‘Mobilité géographique et insertion sociale’’
survey has shown that among immigrants originating from Turkey who
were single at their arrival in France and over 15 years old, only 19 percent of men and 10 percent of women married a person born in France.
These percentages were even lower for immigrants who came before age
15 to France (12 and 5 percent, respectively; Tribalat, 1996).
By contrast, their descendants may neither face an imbalanced marriage market nor insecurity regarding their stay in the country. Furthermore, a language barrier does not exist for them. Hence, three main
possibilities in partner choice for descendants of immigrants emerge: a
person whose parents were both born in the country of destination (a
‘‘native’’), a person who moved himself ⁄ herself to this country as a first-
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generation immigrant, and another second-generation person (a person
born in France whose parents originate from Turkey or who moved with
the parents as a child; of course, a person from a third country can also
be a potential partner; the literature shows, however, that this kind of
couple is exceptional (cf. Milewski, 2003; Safi, 2008). International findings as well as studies on immigrants and their children in France are still
quite rare, but show different results for different immigrant groups at
different destinations. Whereas descendants of Algerian immigrants in
France3 and of Moroccan immigrants in Belgium have an almost even
distribution of the three union types (but with strong gender differences
as mixed marriages are less frequent for women than for men; Tribalat,
1996; Lievens, 1999), descendants of Turkish immigrants living in
Germany, Belgium, and the Netherlands appear to prefer a spouse from
Turkey (Lievens, 1999; González-Ferrer, 2006; Timmermann, 2006; de
Valk, 2008; Lucassen and Laarman, 2009).
In general, both quantitative as well as qualitative studies suggest
that this specific behavior can be attributed to the Turkish family ties. It
appears that chain migration may play a role here, as well as the structure
of the marriage market at destination: the smaller this population is, the
bigger may be the trend to choose a Turkish immigrant as a spouse. The
high proportion of homogenous couples may also be related to the religious affiliation of the immigrants and their descendants as most of them
are of Muslim faith and may have a preference for a partner of the same
religion. Mixed-marriages may, however, more often concern Turkish-origin men than women – as this is a common pattern in immigration contexts for both the first and the second generations (e.g., Kalmijn, 1998;
Lievens, 1999; Milewski, 2003; Filhon and Varo, 2005; de Valk, 2008) –
as the Muslim doctrine does not allow the marriages of a Muslim woman
to a non-Muslim man whereas the opposite is possible.
Lievens (1999) finds in Belgium that low-educated Turkish-origin
men born in Belgium or moved at very young ages and higher educated
women are more likely to have an immigrant spouse. For the latter group,
however, he sees a different motivation for the immigration of a spouse:
3
The rate of mixed marriages of young adults of Algerian parentage with a partner of
French parentage is high: among young men, 50 percent live with a partner whose two
parents were born in France and this rate is 24 percent for women (Tribalat, 1995:77). By
contrast, the rate of marriages with an immigrant is 36 percent for women and only 17
percent for men.
Union Formation and Partner Choice in a Transnational Context
623
He assumes that higher educated women are more assimilated to the
western life styles (here: Belgium) and may therefore want to escape the
initial marriage phase of living with the husband’s family (as is common in
Turkey) and therefore choose a partner from Turkey. Achieving ‘‘modern’’
goals by ‘‘traditional’’ means is the term for this behavior. Evidence for this
has been found mainly in qualitative studies (in France, e.g. Autan, 1995),
but in a similar quantitative analysis for Turks in Germany González-Ferrer
(2006) did not find evidence for this hypothesis.
In our study, we examine whether Turkish immigrants’ descendants
living in France are more likely to follow the demographic patterns
observed for other Turkish second generations in other destination
countries or rather the patterns of descendants of other immigrant groups
living in France by looking at the unions formed by Turkish descendants
from France and first-generation immigrants from Turkey. We hypothesize that Turkey has a dominant influence as a marriage market for the
second generation living in France.
Timing of the First Union. Although the age at the first union is a classic
demographic indicator for the study of transition to adulthood and for
family formation, this indicator is not widely used when it comes to children of immigrant parentage. The focus on the origin of the partner as
an indicator of integration seems to make the other aspects of union
formation life fade into the background. For Germany, Milewski (2003)
has shown that the on average younger age of immigrants from Turkey
coincides both with a low frequency of pre-marital cohabitations and
lower education, as compared to Germans. Yet, as we already indicated,
the formation of the first union takes place relatively early in Turkey and
coincides in general with marriage, while, by contrast, young adults in
France form their first union much later than in Turkey. This suggests
that this indicator might be a key information source, indicating both the
values that the individuals uphold and their living conditions. For
instance, it has been shown concerning descendants of Algerian immigrants living in France, that their entry into a first union is later than that
of French-origin women and men. This unexpected postponement is
partly because of high levels of unemployment. The combination of a
lower level of education and exposure to racial discrimination reduces
their access to the labor market and therefore postpones couple formation.
This also indicates that Algerians’ descendants follow the norm whereby a
household must not be founded before at least the man (if not both
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partners) has obtained a stable employment situation.4 What is the situation for descendants of Turkish immigrants living in France?
Type of First Union. Marriage is one of the core elements of the strong
family patterns in Turkey. Only about 2 percent of all Turkish women
never marry. Marriage is both strongly interrelated with leaving the
parental home and with the first childbirth (Ergöcmen and Eryurt,
2004). Consequently, almost all Turkish immigrant women of the first
generation living in Western European countries (BMFSFJ, 2000, for
Germany) are married. The high rate of married women in the Turkish
migrant populations can, however, not only be traced back to marriage
behaviors in Turkey, but must also be related to the conditions under
which international migration is possible. West Germany, France, The
Netherlands, and other Western European countries restricted immigration from non-EU (EG) member states after 1973 to family reunion. A
family-related move to any of these countries from Turkey is therefore
only possible for persons who are married to someone who holds a residence permit or is a citizen of the respective destination country. At the
same time, a transnational marriage strengthens the ties between Turkish
emigrant communities and Turkey (e.g., Münz, Seifert, and Ulrich,
1997, for Germany; Régnard, 2006, for France; Timmermann, 2006,
2008, for Belgium).
For descendants of Turkish immigrants in France we assume that a
marriage is of less importance in terms of legal conditions. This aspect
may, however, gain importance when the partner comes from Turkey. In
these cases, a high likelihood of marriages (instead of non-marital unions)
can be expected. Consequently, pre-marital cohabitation cannot be an
option for these couples. For women and men whose partner is of French
origin or has at least spent more time already in France, we assume that
the frequency of cohabitation is higher, but still much lower than for
French-born people as the marriage rate in the French population is in
general very low, and we are looking at the first union in our paper. Studies on descendants of Turkish immigrants in other destination countries
show that these young adults would like to cohabit first and marry later,
4
In 1992, among young adults of Algerian parentage, aged 25–29, only 29 percent of
men and 55 percent of women lived with a partner, compared to 38 percent of men and
65 percent of women of French parentage (Lefranc and Thave, 1995).
Union Formation and Partner Choice in a Transnational Context
625
too, as for example is the case in The Netherlands (de Valk, 2006, 2009).
Studies on actual behavior show, however, that a direct marriage was still
the very dominant pattern of union formation of Turkish immigrants and
their descendants, at least in the 1990s (Lievens, 1999). Therefore, we
assume that the cultural heritage as brought from Turkey gives marriage
as the prevailing norm for union formation, especially in cases of a transnational partner choice. Therefore, we work with the competing hypothesis that we will still find a very large share of direct marriages among
first unions of Turkish descendants in France.
Matrimonial Practices in the Turkish Community
As we have seen, quantitative surveys are a useful tool to shed light on
some standard demographic measures of union-formation practices, such
as the timing of first union, and to measure the prevalence of cohabitation
or marriage, and mixed marriages. But these data generally say little about
the social context in which these practices occur, or about the meaning of
these practices for individuals. Here, we present some qualitative data that
highlights the matrimonial practices in the Turkish population both in
Turkey and in Europe. We find it desirable that scientists take into
account knowledge gained from qualitative surveys, especially in the phase
of drafting the questionnaire. This practice is getting more common
today, and the review of qualitative knowledge also constituted the background that oriented the design of the TIES survey regarding partnership
histories. Our study illustrates which insights from qualitative research
have entered into the quantitative TIES-research design and how this
information can be used in the interpretation of the findings. We concentrate here on elements of partner choice which refer to values and cultural
practices.
The Rules of Affinity in Turkey and in the Emigration Context. Historically,
Turkish society was organized into tribes, also called segmentary societies
by anthropologists. Paul Stirling (1965) made a very dense and rich
ethnographic description of the Turkish example of this type of organization in his book titled Turkish Villages. The segmentary system in Turkey
is based on both matrilineal and patrilineal lineages, and is a heritage of
the central Asian nomadic society and of the Muslim religion. This
segmentary organization of society is widespread from Asia to North
Africa. In Turkey, its political influence is now restricted to the level of
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International Migration Review
villages, as the centralized state was set in place in the beginning of the
20th century (Gökalp, 1987). In segmentary societies, partner choice is
determined by belonging to a lineage. The rules of affinity make the marriage of a man with the daughter of his maternal uncle (nomadic heritage)
or with the daughter of his paternal uncle (Islamic heritage) a preferential
marriage (Gökalp, 1989, 2006; Ilcan, 1994). Given that there is a political, economic, and social hierarchy of lineages, these marriages in the parentage are of crucial importance: they are seen as the most prestigious
marriages, as well as the most homogeneous. Gökalp (1994) quotes a
report written by Timur (1972) from a demographic survey conducted in
1968 among 4,500 families, which shows 36 percent of respondents
claimed to be married to a ‘‘close relative’’. Using the 2003 Turkish
Demographic and Health survey, Koc (2008) indicates that out of the
8,075 ever-married interviewed women, consanguineous marriages
accounted for 22 percent of the total, which indicates that despite a sharp
decrease, preferential marriage remains an active practice. This bears witness to the enduring existence of segmentary organization, at least in the
family sphere.
Agricultural reforms, industrialization, and the development of the
tertiary sector weakened the segmentary system and therefore the pattern
of the marriage between cousins: these new sectors of activity now provide
more employment than agriculture and most of the population lives in
cities (Vergin, 1985). These changes are precisely what caused both rural
exodus in Turkey and emigration towards European countries. In other
words, the parents of the Turkish second generation in France originate
from a rural society that was facing crucial transformations and a risk of
disappearance when they emigrated and they married in accordance to the
rules of affinity of the segmentary society. This led Tribalat in 1992 to
include a question on the family ties between partners in the questionnaire of the Geographical Mobility and Social Insertion Survey. In 1992,
marriages with a cousin or another person of the extended family represented 27 percent of men’s marriages and 23 percent of women’s marriages among Turkish first-generation immigrants living in France
(Tribalat, 1996:81). Considering qualitative data, Gökalp (1994) suggests
these changes in the Turkish society lead to a reinforcement of preferential marriage practices in Turkey.
Given the importance of this kind of marriage in Turkish society,
the question of whether unions in the kinship also exist in the population
of the Turkish second generation is especially legitimate. This led the
Union Formation and Partner Choice in a Transnational Context
627
designers of the TIES survey to include a question on the family ties
between the spouses in the questionnaire.
Intergenerational and Gender Relations and Partner Choice. As a consequence of both the preferential marriage and the young age at marriage in
Turkey, marriage arranged by the parents is a widespread practice. Thus,
Turkish immigrants who live in France belong to a generation who were
married by their parents in a context where individual choice of the partner was not an option. According to the Geographical Mobility and
Social Insertion Survey, the rate of arranged marriages by parents among
Turkish immigrants who were already married when they arrived in
France was 51 percent for women (46 percent with their consent and 6
percent without their consent) and 38 percent for men (36 percent with
their consent and 3 percent without their consent). These results show
that parents’ intervention in the partner choice was a common practice
for this generation raised in Turkey.
Conversely, in France, the partner choice is supposed to be based on
a romantic attraction, free of any parental pressure. Sociologists have
shown that today, parents implement educational strategies to ensure that
their children choose a partner of the same social rank, resulting in strong
social homogamy within couples (Bozon and Héran, 2006). The definition of ‘‘a good marriage’’ (we would rather say today ‘‘of a good partner’’ as marriage has disappeared) is interiorized, and parents no longer
directly choose a partner for their children who thus have the illusion of
free choice. Even if the social determinants that lead to the choice of a
partner invalidate the idea that ‘‘free choice’’ actually exists, it is obvious
that the choice of the partner is now individual.
In the migration context, parents may not share the same point of
view on partner choice as their children born and socialized in a European
country. Qualitative research emphasizes that parental influence on partner choice is of high importance in Turkish immigrant families. Conducting qualitative research on partner choice among descendants of Turkish
immigrants in Germany, Straßburger (2003) defines several forms of marriage arrangements by parents that range from informal introduction of
potential candidates to very binding negotiations. In a qualitative survey
conducted in the beginning of the 1990s with Turkish families living in a
village in the center of France, Autan (1995) examined matrimonial practices and noted that both young female and male Turkish immigrants
who arrived at a young age in France (before 14 years old) conform to
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their parents’ expectations by marrying their cousin or at least someone
who originates from the same region of origin in Turkey. Note that
Autan’s work deals with young people who were born in Turkey and who
married a short time after their parents settled in France. Is her observation still valid 15 years later concerning the young people born and raised
in France and at least 20 years after the parents’ arrival on the French territory? To what extent do they arrange the marriage of their children or
try to influence their marital choice? To further our knowledge in this
area, some specific questions not generally included in quantitative surveys
on integration of immigrants’ descendents, were included in the TIES
questionnaire. They allow a better understanding of parents’ role in their
children’s partner choice. Those questions concern the place where the
partner was first met and the parents’ role in the respondent’s decision to
marry.
Sexuality: A Key Issue in Transnational Marriages. In segmentary societies,
extramarital sexuality, especially pre-marital sexuality, constitutes an
offense to the family honor. The threat of shame and dishonor leads to
strict control over both men’s and women’s sexuality. The feeling of
shame that results from extramarital sexuality is a social sanction and
the means by which women are socially controlled (Peristiany, 1966;
Ozyegin, 2009). Given that marriage is almost universal in Turkey, sexuality outside marriage is still looked on as a violation of morality.
Nevertheless, since the 1980s, the rapid economic and political
changes, as well as the European integration process, have challenged the
cultural values relating to gender roles and sexuality. In 1999, on the initiative of the Turkish feminist movement, a decree made it illegal for officials to request a virginity test without the consent of the women
(Ozyegin, 2009). Today, both young men and women are calling for a
sexual liberalization, considering that notions of virginity and sexual
honor are anachronistic, but according to Ozyegin’s qualitative research,
these young adults have to face their parents’ disapproval of premarital
sexuality.
Up to the end of the 1960s, in France, the events that marked the
transition to the adult sexuality (in a stable couple), that is, leaving the
parental home, getting married, and experiencing first sexual intercourse,
occurred at the same time (Girard, 1974). A quantitative survey on sexual
behaviors of French people has shown that this pattern is now restricted
to a small share of the population: only about 7 percent of men and 11
Union Formation and Partner Choice in a Transnational Context
629
percent of women aged 18–24 in 1992 had their first intercourse on or
after their wedding day (Bajos and Spira, 1993).
In the migration context, the difference between the two countries
inevitably creates a situation where individuals are submitted to contradictory injunctions. Turkish parents and their descendants may not be able
to ignore that the norm of female virginity has become old-fashioned and
is now even stigmatized in France. Consequently, young adults of Turkish
origin have to face and resist the pressure of other young adults of their
age while at the same time considering their parents’ opinion and submitting to their authority.
We believe that sexuality is a key issue for examining how the values
governing matrimonial practices evolve in the migration context. This led
the French team of the TIES survey to include questions on sexuality in
the questionnaire,5 both on attitudes and on practices that address the
issue of the norm of virginity. It is probably the first time that such a
question has been included in a quantitative survey.
The TIES Survey – Overview of Sampling, Data, Method, and
Indicators
Data on Descendants of Turkish Migrants in the TIES Survey. The TIES is
an international survey whose aim is to examine how the receiving countries integrate descendants of immigrants and to evaluate their ‘‘integration models’’. For this purpose, it was necessary to conduct the survey
among a group that is widespread in Europe in order to control the effect
of the origin. Therefore people of Turkish origin were chosen, and a standardized questionnaire was used in each country.
The aim was to achieve a representative sample of the Turkish second generation in seven countries. The target sample size was 500 descendants of Turkish immigrants, who were born in the country of
destination, and 500 descendants of the native population in each country, aged 18–35. Furthermore, second-generation persons of Moroccan
and ex-Yugoslavian origin were included in a few countries. The fieldwork
was first conducted in The Netherlands in 2006. France is the second
country to implement the survey in the field. The interviews were
5
The question on the age at the first intercourse was included only in the French questionnaire of the TIES survey, but not in the other countries participating in the TIES
project.
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International Migration Review
conducted there in the second half of 2007 (TIES, 2008). (The other
countries included in TIES are: Germany, Belgium, Austria, Switzerland,
Sweden, and Spain.)
What is an immigrant? What is a descendant of an immigrant? In
this paper, we use the definitions given by the French High Council for
Integration, a government body that gathers scientific information on
immigrants in France. Its definition is now used by the French National
Statistical Institute and by the French demographers and statisticians
(INSEE, 2008a) and was used to design the sample. An immigrant is a
person who did not have French nationality at birth and whose country
of birth is not France. Someone who currently has French nationality
may be an immigrant if s ⁄ he was born abroad and did not have French
nationality at birth. Hence, all foreigners are immigrants, but not all
immigrants are foreigners. Someone who was born abroad and had the
French nationality at birth is not considered as an immigrant. In French
statistical analysis it is generally considered that a descendant of an
immigrant is a person who was born in France and who has one or two
parents born abroad. A descendant of two immigrants has a foreign
nationality at birth if neither parent is naturalized, but this person generally becomes French at age 18. If one of the two parents is naturalized,
the child has two nationalities at birth. Grand-children of immigrants
are invisible in French statistics as they are systematically French citizens
at birth.
The TIES survey is designed to be conducted in two cities in each
of the countries involved, as immigrant families are concentrated in urban
areas. The aim of this urban sampling is also to examine the impact of
the city context on respondents’ life courses. In France, the two cities are
Paris, the capital, and Strasbourg (close to the German border). In the
French case, Turkish families still form a small group and their children
born in France constitute a tiny proportion of the whole population.
Turkish immigrants are not present everywhere on the French territory.
They live in three areas: Paris and its suburbs which is home to 64,000 of
them, the North-East of France (Alsace) close to the German border
where their number is about 28,000, and the South-East (Rhône-Alpes)
where they total 37,000. Although they are much more numerous in the
South-East than in the Alsace, they represent a much larger proportion of
the immigrant population in Alsace than in the South-East (INSEE,
2008b). That is the reason why Paris and Strasbourg, the biggest city in
the Alsace, were chosen to conduct the survey.
Union Formation and Partner Choice in a Transnational Context
631
The Impact of the French Sampling Method on the Measurement of Mixed
Couples. In France, the census collects individual information on the
country of birth, which makes it possible to identify immigrants, but not
their descendants because they were born in France (Simon, 2003). Moreover, there was no other sample frame available. For example, in the Family History Survey (survey Enquête Histoire familiale, 380,000 respondents,
conducted in 1999) in which the parents’ country of birth is recorded,
there were only 344 descendants of Turkish immigrants. Considering that
they were dispersed throughout France and that their age range was much
wider than that of our sample, this survey could not be used as a sampling frame for the TIES purpose.
To get around this obstacle, an original sampling method was
designed, that has some consequences on the counting of ‘‘mixed couples’’. This method worked in two steps. First, a German institute
(Humpert and Schneiderheinze), that is specialized in the onomastic
method (the recognition of the affiliation of a patronym or a surname to
a language) made a selection of Turkish-sounding names in the phone
book in order to build a reduced sample frame, compared to the whole
phone book that would have been too large. Some 10,000 subscribers
were selected, that is, 10,000 households for which there was a high
probability of finding someone who was born in Turkey or who was of
Turkish origin. Then, a screening questionnaire was administered in order
to record the socio-demographic characteristics of each member of the
household (age, sex, country of birth, and parents’ country of birth, level
of education), in order to select potential respondents, that is, those aged
18–35 born in France and with one or both parents born in Turkey.
Given that in most of the cases the respondent who answered the screening questionnaire was not the one selected for the survey, the interviewer
had to call a second time in order to present the survey to the potential
survey respondent and to get an appointment to conduct the face-to-face
interview. At the time of the first call, the interviewer frequently noted
down the selected person’s mobile phone number when s ⁄ he had one, to
get in touch with him ⁄ her directly. All the interviewers were Turkishspeakers: this linguistic proficiency enabled them to talk easily to the first
respondent when s ⁄ he was not fluent in French, which was sometimes the
case when the first respondent was the mother of the selected person.
The method of the Turkish-sounding-name selection contains two
biases. Children of Turkish-migrant women who are married to a man
who is not of Turkish origin do not appear in the sample frame as they
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International Migration Review
have acquired their husband’s last name and therefore do not have a
Turkish name any more. Female descendants of Turkish immigrants who
are married to a man whose last name does not sound Turkish do not
appear in the sample frame either, which theoretically increases the proportion of women who are married to either a Turkish immigrant or to a
descendant of Turkish immigrants. This raises the question of the TIES
data reliability for exploring union formation patterns.
Several arguments lead us to believe that these biases have a low
impact. First, in 1999, only about 5 percent of Turkish immigrant
women were married to a man who was born in France because most of
the women in this group where already married before they migrated
(Borrel and Tavan, 2003; INSEE, 2005:61). Second the proportion of
children of these mixed couples amounts to less than 4 percent of the
total number of children of Turkish immigrants (this figure has been calculated from the Family History Survey, 1999. This survey, however, does
not provide information on the country of birth of the partners’ parents).
Although these persons are effectively excluded from our sample, the representativeness of the sample is not greatly affected.
We may expect the second bias to be more problematic, as the rate
of ‘‘mixed marriages’’ is generally higher among descendents of immigrants than among immigrants. But in the Family History survey, 80 percent of female descendants of Turkish immigrants are married to Turkish
immigrants, and 20 percent of them are married to a man born in
France, but whose father may have been born in Turkey. In these cases,
the women are not lost from the sample frame. The number of women
whose parents are Turkish immigrants and who are married to a man
born in France of French parents is under-represented in the TIES sample, but we know that they represent fewer than 20 percent of married
women of Turkish immigrant parentage in France. In order to reduce this
bias, we designed the following procedure: The respondents living in the
household of each Turkish-sounding-name person were asked if there was
a Turkish immigrant in the household who had a daughter who had left
home and married a man whose name was not Turkish, that is, who had
a husband whose father was not born in Turkey. In this case, the young
woman was added to the sample. Unfortunately, this technique does not
identify women (married to a man whose name does not sound Turkish),
whose parents live in an area other than Paris or Strasbourg. Young
women of Turkish immigrant parentage who are married to a man whose
father was not born in Turkey finally represent about 8 percent of the
Union Formation and Partner Choice in a Transnational Context
633
sample of married women in the TIES survey. We cannot say whether
they are under- or over-represented, but we can affirm that this figure is
consistent with the proportion of young men married to a women of
French parentage. Indeed, we know that the rate of transnational couples
is generally higher for men than for women. For instance, in 1993 the
Geographical Mobility and Social Insertion Survey showed that 15 percent of female descendants of Algerian immigrants aged 20–29 and 24
percent of men of the same background and same age were married to a
spouse whose parents were both born in France (Tribalat, 1995:77). In
the TIES survey, the rate of men who are married to a woman whose two
parents were not born in Turkey is 25 percent. The bias has been partly
corrected, even though we do not know whether the proportion of young
women married to a man whose father was not born in Turkey (about 8
percent) should be closer to or farther from 25 percent. (Table A1 in the
Appendix summarizes the different steps of the screening procedure.)
Among the 10,550 Turkish-sounding names selected, 3,633 were
numbers of companies or were no longer available and 294 other numbers were continuously engaged. Therefore, only 6,917 calls led to a contact with someone. Some of the respondents immediately said that no one
in the household was in the target group either because there was no one
in the age bracket or because the family was not of Turkish origin, which
both may correspond to the reality or may have been a polite way to
refuse to participate in the survey. Finally, 37 percent of these first
respondents agreed to answer to the screening questionnaire, that is, to
describe their household, but 268 of them gave up before the end, considering that the questionnaire was too long or that the questions were too
personal. Out of the 2,231 fully completed screening questionnaires, 50
percent corresponded to households in which (or through which) at least
one person in the target group could be contacted, that is 1,628 potential
respondents. Only one person was chosen per household, that is, 1,114
individuals. The women no longer living at their parents’ home, who
were married to a man whose father was not born in Turkey, had priority
for the selection. As most of the respondents to the screening questionnaire were not the selected person, a second call was made to contact
them directly. Out of the 1,114 selected persons, 88 percent were
successfully reached. The rate of refusal of the face-to-face interview was
49 percent.
The description of the sampling procedure shows how complex it
was to identify young adults of immigrant parentage in France. Further-
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International Migration Review
more, the absence of data on the total population of Turkish immigrants’
descendants prevents us from calculating weights to extrapolate our results
to this population as a whole.
ANALYSIS
The whole sample consists of 500 descendants of Turkish immigrants
(282 women and 218 men) and 351 young adults of French parentage
(188 women and 163 men). Our analysis proceeds in three steps. We first
estimate the transition to a first union of young adults of Turkish descent
and of French descent. Then, we look at the type of union and describe
further characteristics of the first unions of young Turkish and French
descendants. Thirdly, we concentrate on transnational unions of the Turkish second generation, describe them and give some determinants.
Transition to a First Union
Method. We analyze the transition to a first union for the whole sample,
separately for women and men. In this part, a union is defined as the formation of a shared household, without differentiating between married
couples and non-marital cohabitations. We apply event-history techniques:
The first statistical tool used to describe the patterns is Kaplan-Meier survival estimates. These calculations give an estimate of the share of women
who enter a union, and of how quickly they do so. A crucial indicator
here is the median age. Therefore, this tool can be used even when not all
women of the study population have formed a union yet. Second, piecewise-constant intensity regression models are estimated as a form of indirect standardization, as suggested by Hoem (1987) (cf. Hoem, 1993;
Blossfeld and Rohwer, 1995). Monthly information on age of the respondent and age at union formation can be used. If monthly information is
not available because of missing answers, we impute such events to have
occurred in June (this applies to one case regarding the month of birth
and to 77 cases concerning the month of union formation).
The model can be formalized as follows:
ln li ðt Þ ¼ yðt Þ þ Rl al x il þ Rm bm w im ðt Þ;
where li(t) denotes the hazard of a first union for individual i at process
time t and y(t) represents the baseline log-hazard. The process time for
Union Formation and Partner Choice in a Transnational Context
635
the transition to a first union is the time as the respondents turned
age 15. The end of the respective process time is either at the formation
of the first household or at the interview when no union is reported
(censoring).
The term wim(t) represents the effect of a time-varying variable (educational enrolment). The term xil denotes the effect of a time-constant
covariate (such as birth cohort, religious affiliation, place of residence).
Covariates. The covariates we use for the first part of the analysis – transition to a first union – are the following ones:
Place of residence: The cities sampled are Paris and Strasbourg with an
almost even share of the respondents of the both groups in the two cities.
We assume that the transition to a first union is faster in Strasbourg than
in Paris as the ‘‘traditionality’’ of the Alsace region is higher than in the
capital.
Birth cohort: This variable has the following categories: 1971–1975,
1976–1980, 1981–1985, and 1986+. The sample of the descendants of
Turkish immigrants is relatively young: Only about 28 percent of them
were born before 1981. This compares to 50 percent in the French-origin
sample, that is, every second respondent was at least 27 years old at the
interview. We assume that younger cohorts enter a union later than older
ones, thus following more the Western European patterns.
Education: We use the highest level of education attained. For those who
are still in education, this variable gives the highest degree of schooling or
university education that the respondent has completed before his or her
current education. We group the categories as follows: ‘‘vocational higher
secondary level’’ (which corresponds to the following French diploma:
Certificat d’aptitude professionnelle, Brevet d’études professionnels, Baccalauréat professionnels), ‘‘academic higher secondary level’’ (Baccalauréat
general ou technique), and ‘‘tertiary education’’ (university and vocational
diploma in higher education level: diplômes de l’enseignement supérieur).
We assume that higher educated persons enter a first union later than
lower educated ones.
Religion during childhood: The survey captures information related to
religion at different points in time, that is, during childhood and at the
time of the interview. We use the question ‘‘Were you raised in a particular religion?’’ We call this covariate ‘‘religion during childhood’’. Almost
80 percent of the Turkish immigrants’ descendants were raised in the
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International Migration Review
Sunni Islamic tradition, whereas almost half of the respondents of French
parentage were raised in the Catholic Church. Few respondents reported
being raised in other Muslim school (such as Shia or Alevi) or in the
Protestant or Orthodox Churches. As the share of these cases is each very
small, we use the categories ‘‘Christian’’, ‘‘Muslim’’, and ‘‘Jewish, other,
none’’. We assume that persons who were raised in a religion are more
likely to follow the pattern of early entry into a union in the form of
marriage.
Number of siblings: We can also include information on the respondent’s
family of origin. We use here the number of siblings.
We also include the educational background of the parents. For mothers
and fathers, we built a dichotomous variable for each that refers to higher
education. It distinguishes between primary ⁄ lower secondary education
and educational attainment that is higher secondary or tertiary. We
assume that immigrant descendants with higher educated parents are more
likely to follow the French than the Turkish demographic patterns.
Table A2 in the Appendix gives an overview about the sample.
Results. As our sample is very young, fewer than 50 percent of our
respondents had experienced a first union at the survey time. The proportions were about 33 percent in the group of Turkish origin (115 women
and 52 men) and about 47 percent in the group of French ancestry (96
women and 68 men).
The transition rates to a first union are higher among the women in
the Turkish-origin group. 50 percent of the women have entered a union
before age 24, whereas the median age is about 25 years in the French
origin group. By age 30, only 11 percent of women of Turkish ancestry
have not formed a union. This compares to 23 percent of women of
French ancestry who had not formed a union by that age. (The differences
between the groups are significant on the 5 percent level; see Figure I.)
Men enter a first union about 2 years later than women. For men,
the transition to a first union is not significantly different for the youths
of Turkish descent and those of French ancestry. The median ages are 26
and 27 years, respectively. The share of men not having experienced a first
union at age 30 are 35 and 37 percent, respectively (see Figure I).
Turning to the intensity-regression analysis for women, the first step
is the comparison between the group of Turkish origin and the group of
French parentage, controlling for the age of the women (Model 1 in
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Union Formation and Partner Choice in a Transnational Context
Share of persons without union
Figure I.
Transition to a First Union
1
0.9
0.8
0.7
0.6
0.5
0.4
0.3
0.2
0.1
0
15
20
25
30
Age in years
Turkish-descent w omen
French-descent w omen
Turkish-descent men
French-descent men
Table 1). We find significantly higher first-union risks (+35 percent) for
Turkish-descent women than for French-descent women. Model 2 introduces birth cohort and place of residence. As expected, younger cohorts
are less likely to enter a first union than older ones, and this is the case in
both origin groups. Interestingly, the place of residence does not play an
explanatory role for the French-descent women, but it does for the Turkish descendants. Women in Strasbourg have a 75 percent higher chance
to enter a first union than those in Paris (results of separate modeling are
not shown here).
These two variables do not, however, explain the differences between
the Turkish- and French-origin groups. Model 3 adds the educational
attainment, and this variable explains the group differences. As expected,
women who have an academic secondary education or tertiary education
enter a first union later than those who have a vocational education.
Adding this variable to the model removes the differences between the
groups, thus indicating some compositional differences with a higher share
of descendants of Turkish immigrants having completed only vocational
education. Note that we have used the completed education. We may
thus underestimate the share of the persons who were still in education
by the time of the interview. We worked in a preliminary analysis also
with time-varying indicators of educational enrolment and educational
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International Migration Review
TRANSITION
TO A
TABLE 1
FIRST UNION OF WOMEN, RELATIVE RISKS
Variable
Model 1
Model 2
Model 3
Model 4
French ancestry
Turkish ancestry
Birth cohort
1971–1975
1976–1980
1981–1985
1986+
Place of residence
Paris
Strasbourg
Educational attainment
Vocational secondary level
Academic secondary level
Tertiary education
Religion during childhood
None (or other)
Christian
Muslim
Number of siblings
0
1 or 2
3+
Father with higher education
No
Yes
Age
<20
20–25
25–30
30–35
1
1.4*
1
1.5**
1
1.2
1
0.9
1
1.3
0.6*
0.2**
1
1.2
0.7**
0.2***
1
1.2
0.7**
0.3***
1
1.4**
1
1.3*
1
1.3
1
0.5**
0.5***
1
0.5**
0.5***
1
1.0
1.3
1
0.90
0.90
1
0.8
0.002***
0.009***
0.011***
0.007***
0.002***
0.008***
0.008***
0.006***
0.003***
0.016***
0.004***
0.006***
0.004***
0.019***
0.019***
0.014***
Source: Calculations based on TIES France 2007.
Note: Significance: * = 5%; ** = 1%; *** = 0.1%.
track currently attained. They showed, however, similar results for the
diploma, and union-formation risks were naturally very low in times of
enrolment for both groups. Therefore, we decided to work with the simple education indicator.
So far, the results indicate that the differences between the two
groups regarding the transition to a first union are due to differences in
the social characteristics (mainly the level of education) rather than the
Turkish cultural heritage of the migrant descendants. Model 4 adds three
further covariates that refer to the socio-cultural background of the
respondents. They have a significant impact on the transition to a first
union only if the education of the respondent is not considered. Controlling for education, these variables lose their impact. Women with more
Union Formation and Partner Choice in a Transnational Context
639
siblings, and women with a relatively low educated father have higher
union-transition risks than women with less than two or no siblings and a
father with higher education. The mother’s education does not matter at
all, and the religion during childhood does not add much to the model as
there is a high correlation with the ethnic-group variable.
For men, the analyses were done using the same covariates. Their
effect on the first-union risks was similar to that for women, and no significant differences appear between the two groups of origin (therefore,
results not displayed here).
Type of First Union
Now, we have a closer look at the type of first union. A total of 167
descendants of Turkish immigrants have entered a first union and 164
persons of French ancestry. When we distinguish by union type, a
striking difference occurs: In the Turkish-descent group, about 80 percent of the first unions are marriages, whereas only 2 percent of the
first unions are marriages in the French-origin group (see Table 2). For
descendants of Turkish immigrants, the most frequent union type is a
direct marriage. About 70 percent of the Turkish-descent women married and formed a household when they married or within 3 months
of marriage. This compares to an about 56 percent of Turkish-descent
men. There, the share of direct marriages is somewhat smaller, but still
the dominant union formation type. By contrast, direct marriage in
first union formation does not exist in the sample of respondents of
French parentage.
The reasons for leaving the parental home tie in with these findings.
More than 80 percent of Turkish-descent women left the parental home
for union formation. About 10 percent had lived on their own after leaving the parental home. Though men of Turkish descent are less likely to
leave the parental home for union formation than women, with about 56
percent, union formation is the most frequent option nevertheless. By
contrast, about four-fifths of the French-descent respondents left the
parental home in order to live on their own.
Table 2 shows also the meeting place of the partners. Family networks and vacation in Turkey are of highest importance in meeting the
future partner for Turkish-descent women and men, whereas for Frenchdescent interviewees friends, school, and the public sphere are more
important for contacts. We must stress that the proportion of partners
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International Migration Review
CHARACTERISTICS
OF THE
TABLE 2
FIRST UNION OF TURKISH-DESCENT
WOMEN AND MEN (%)
AND
FRENCH-DESCENT
Women
Men
Turkish- French- Turkish- FrenchDescent Descent Descent Descent
Union type
Direct marriage
Marriage with pre-marital cohabitation
Cohabitation
Married, but no information on pre-marital cohabitation
Meeting place of partners
School
Work
Friends
Association
Public place, dancing, vacation elsewhere
Parents introduced us
Through someone in parents’ network
Family celebration
Vacation in Turkey
Other
Missing values
Reason for leaving parental home
Marriage
Cohabitation
Independent living
Education
Work
Parents returned
Problems with parents
Still with parents
Missing values
Origin of partner + partner’s age at immigration
Born in France, French parentage
Born in France, Turkish parentage
Born in Turkey, immigrated aged under 18
Born in Turkey, immigrated aged 18+
Born in Turkey, immigration age not known
Born in France, immigrant parentage (other origin)
Born in another country, immigrated aged under 18
Born in another country, immigrated aged 18+
Born in another country, immigration age not known
Missing values
N
71
10
11
8
0
0
98
2
56
21
21
2
0
1
97
1
7
4
12
3
6
2
4
13
28
7
13
15
5
28
2
9
0
1
0
NA
3
36
8
4
25
0
8
6
10
6
15
2
17
15
7
24
3
16
1
1
1
NA
1
29
76
7
3
7
0
1
0
5
1
7
26
7
41
11
NA
5
1
0
37
19
6
10
10
0
2
17
0
0
18
13
43
24
NA
1
1
0
10
9
13
56
9
3
0
0
1
1
115
75
NA
NA
NA
NA
7
8
3
5
1
96
25
17
12
31
7
6
0
0
1
0
52
78
NA
NA
NA
NA
3
13
4
0
1
68
Source: Calculations based on TIES France 2007.
Note: NA–not applicable.
introduced by parents is quite rare: only 2 and 6 percent for men and
women respectively, which indicates that arranged marriages directly by
parents is a practice that is tending to disappear in the migration context.
Instead, family celebrations, the parents’ network of friends, and vacation
Union Formation and Partner Choice in a Transnational Context
641
in Turkey are of bigger importance for the Turkish second generation.
This may indicate still a large influence of the extended family.6
Concerning the origin of the partner, we find that the majority
of the partners of the Turkish-descent respondents are of Turkish origin or are immigrants from Turkey (81 percent in total). Again, differences appear between women and men, with women being more likely
to have a Turkish immigrant or immigrant descendant as a partner
than men (87 and 67 percent, respectively). For French-descent interviewees, we find that about 20 percent of the partners are not of
French origin.
Characteristics and Determinants of a Transnational Union of Turkish
Immigrants’ Descendants
Method. The unions of Turkish immigrants’ descendants can be classified into two main categories: transnational unions and other unions.
We define a transnational union as a union between a person of Turkish descent who was born and raised in France (i.e., our respondents
from the TIES survey) and a person from Turkey who immigrated to
France at age 18 or older. The category of other unions includes both
partners born in France and of Turkish origin and partners who are of
French origin, that is, who were born in France without immigration
background.
We focus on the determinants of entering a transnational union
versus any other union type by applying a logistic-regression model.
The model can be formalized as follows:
ln Xðx i Þ ¼ b0 þ bj x i ;
where X(xi) represents the odds ratio of an individual i for having a
transnational union and bj represents the impact of a covariate j on
the odds.
6
Note that this variable has relatively large shares of missing values. This is caused by the
survey design as this information was only asked for the current partner or, in the case of
single persons, for the previous partner, but not for the first partner. As about half of the
French respondents were no longer in their first union at the time of the survey interview,
the information for the first partner is not available.
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International Migration Review
Covariates. The covariates we used for the first part of the analysis – transition to a first union – are the same ones that we use in the analysis on
the transition to a first union. In addition, we constructed several indicators that are specific to the Turkish-descent group such as school attended
in Turkey and language raised in. These indicators did not, however,
show much variation in the sub-sample and could therefore not be
included in the analysis. Two indicators, that we use in addition, are ethnic networks during school years and the fathers’ home region in Turkey
(we only use the information on the father as it correlates strongly with
the mother’s origin). For the networks, we used the question on the
national background of the three best friends in secondary school.
Results. In order to estimate the likelihood of having a transnational union
we proceeded in two steps. First we ran the models separately for women
and men and then in a joint model. We decided to present the only joint
model here as almost none of the covariates had a significant impact on
men’s partner choice and their sample size is very small anyway. Women
are much more likely (see Table 3) to have a partner from Turkey than
men. For women, we find that those living in Strasbourg are much more
likely to have a transnational partner than women living in Paris. For both
sexes, there is no clear trend by birth cohort (see Table 3, Model 1). What
does matter – again – is the education of the respondent. The higher the
educational attainment, the lower the likelihood of a transnational partner
choice. This variable also explains the differences between persons from
Paris and Strasbourg, indicating compositional differences especially for
the women in these two cities. Social networks in school and the father’s
region of origin in Turkey only played a role in bivariate tests. When controlling for the place of residence, they do not contribute to explaining the
patterns. This is related to the fact that residents of Strasbourg are more
likely to have a network that consists of more Turkish than other friends.
For the fathers’ region of origin, we did not find any impact. In bivariate
statistics, persons with a father from the Aegean region or the Black Sea
were more likely to have a transnational union, but this effect vanishes
when controlling for place of residence and education.
How can we explain the city differences? The characteristics of the
immigrants living in Strasbourg are different from those who live in Paris.
As Paris is the capital, it is obviously more open to diversity and to new
behaviors. Its population is also much more educated than in the rest of
the country, a factor which has a strong impact on norms and representa-
Union Formation and Partner Choice in a Transnational Context
DETERMINANTS
OF
HAVING
A
643
TABLE 3
TRANSNATIONAL UNION OF TURKISH DESCENDANTS (ODDS RATIOS)
Variable
Sex
Men
Women
Place of residence
Paris
Strasbourg
Birth cohort
1971–1980
1981+
Educational attainment
Vocational secondary level
Academic secondary level
Tertiary education
Number of siblings
0–2
3+
Religion during childhood
Muslim
Other or none
Friends during secondary school
0–1 Turkish
2–3 Turkish
Father’s region of origin in Turkey
Aegean or Black Sea
Anatolia
Other region
Model 1
Model 2
1
2.8**
1
3.0
1
2.0*
1
1.2
1
0.8
1
0.8
1
0.4*
0.1***
1
1.5
1
0.8
1
1.1
1.4
0.6
1
Source: Calculations based on TIES France 2007.
Note: Significance: * = 5%; ** = 1%; *** = 0.1%.
tions, especially regarding sexuality, gender, and matrimonial behaviors.
Paris appears to be more attractive for educated people, and this is true
for the French population and for immigrants too. On the contrary, Alsace is one of the most traditional areas in France, because of the strong
influence of religion. Several surveys on values of the French population
have shown that the stronger the religious beliefs, the lower the permissiveness regarding sexuality (e.g., acceptance of pre-marital sexuality, of
abortion, and of homosexuality; Lambert, 2002). Alsace is indeed the only
area in France where the principle of ‘‘laı̈cité’’ (separation between the
state and the Church) is not applied: for instance, there are religion
courses in the public schools, which are forbidden everywhere else. This
particularity is a heritage of Alsace’s former annexation to Germany, a
country where citizens finance Church maintenance. This specificity has
an impact on the behaviors of both immigrants and the French population. Therefore, a comparison of the Turkish religious associations in both
Paris and Strasbourg and of their influence on the Turkish community
644
International Migration Review
would probably help us to understand the differences. An in-depth study
about the impact of religion courses at school on representations of sexuality and marital life could shed light on transnational marriage, as these
marriages are linked to more conservative conceptions of sexuality.
The last step in our analysis is a description of the characteristics of
the various union types of Turkish descendants. We carried out chisquared tests using indicators that are frequently mentioned in the literature as playing a role in cultural maintenance within Turkish communities.
We asked if these indicators are more frequent in transnational unions
than in other union types (see Table 4). We find the importance of virginity confirmed in both actual behavior and attitudes. In transnational
unions and in other ‘‘Turkish’’ unions (i.e., a union with a partner of
Turkish origin raised in France) more than half of the respondents did
not have premarital sex. The share of persons without premarital sex is
lower in the category of other Turkish unions and the lowest share is in
mixed unions where the partner is of French or other origin.7 Pre-marital
cohabitation occurs in only 12 percent of the transnational unions, which
can probably be traced back to legal conditions. We should note, however, that pre-marital cohabitation is even less frequent in other Turkish
unions and that also in other unions the share is less than a third. This
indicates that there is still a norm of marriage within the Turkish community. Unions between relatives (that is, mainly between cousins) are more
frequent in transnational unions than in other Turkish unions. And
finally, two questions refer to the involvement of parents in the union formation. First, it was ascertained by the following question: ‘‘Has pressure
ever been placed on you by your family or your family-in-law to renounce
your marriage?’’ The responses show that almost 30 percent of parents
put pressure on their children to not get married when the partner was
not of Turkish origin. Second, the question was asked: ‘‘Has pressure ever
been placed on you by your family or your family-in-law to encourage
your marriage?’’ Here, the frequency of parents’ involvement was with
about 35 percent the highest in transnational unions. This stresses that
the parents’ influence in union formation is still relatively high, although
7
The French questionnaire includes a question on the age at the first sexual intercourse. As
it is not a run-of-mill query, the interviewers should not read the question. They had to
show it to the interviewee who had to enter his or her response in the computer without
giving the response loudly. This technique was implemented in order to preserve the
respondents’ intimacy. This question was put at the very end of the questionnaire.
Union Formation and Partner Choice in a Transnational Context
CHARACTERISTICS
OF THE
UNIONS
Transnational
Union
TABLE 4
TURKISH-DESCENT WOMEN
OF
Other
Turkish
Union
Pre-marital sex***
Yes
41
49
No
59
51
Married before age 20***
Yes
36
17
No
64
83
Premarital cohabitation***
Yes
12
6
No
88
67
Missing values
0
27
Partners are relatives***
Yes
25
6
No
75
94
Parents put pressure to renounce marriage***
Yes
14
20
No
86
65
Missing values
0
15
Parents encouraged marriage***
Yes
35
15
No
65
70
Missing values
0
15
Attitudes: ‘‘Pre-marital sex for women is not acceptable’’***
‘‘I agree’’
49
48
‘‘I disagree’’
51
52
Attitudes: ‘‘Pre-marital sex for men is not acceptable’’***
‘‘I agree’’
33
28
‘‘I disagree’’
67
72
N
80
54
AND
645
MEN (%)
Mixed
Union with
French or
Other Partner
Total
91
9
53
47
0
100
23
77
28
16
56
66
34
0
100
14
86
28
16
57
19
65
16
16
28
56
25
60
16
91
9
41
59
3
97
33
25
75
167
Source: Calculations based on Ties France 2007.
Note: Significance: *** = 0.1% (chi-squared tests).
the parents may not directly introduce the future partners in the first
place (as shown in Table 2). Another question asked if the respondent
was married against her ⁄ his will. About 5 percent of all Turkish-descent
persons in couple said that they actually did not want to get married to
their partner (not displayed in the tables).
SYNTHESIS AND NEW PERSPECTIVES FOR THE STUDY OF
TRANSNATIONAL UNIONS
Synthesis of Findings
Let us briefly review our findings from the point of view of our starting
questions.
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International Migration Review
Transition to a first union: We find our hypothesis confirmed that the
entry into the first union occurs earlier, but only for women of Turkish descent compared to women of French descent. This is mainly related to compositional differences between the groups. For men, however, there are no
differences between youth of Turkish descent and respondents of French
parentage. We can conclude that union formation of Turkish descendants
in France occurs somewhat later than in Turkey, but there is no similarity
with the pattern of Algerian descendants in France whose first union formation is even more postponed than that of other young adults.
Type of union: Our analysis clearly identifies marriage as the dominant form of union, in most cases direct marriage, as expected, even more
so for women than for men.
Migration background: Our analysis shows the importance of Turkey
as a marriage market in the sense that more than half of the partners in
the TIES sample came for union formation from Turkey to France. We
cannot confirm, however, that there is a higher likelihood of transnational
unions for lower educated men or higher educated women.
Homogamy of origin and endogamy: Descendants of Turkish immigrants in France show a relatively high rate of homogenous marriages as
far as the national ⁄ migration background of the partner is concerned.
This is consistent with international findings and also ties in with ethnographic observations: the prevalence of both the endogamic marriage rule
(with relatives) and of the religious homogamy rule. Furthermore, our
hypothesis of higher homogamy of origin among women than among
men was confirmed.
Taking these findings together, we see a large influence of the Turkish family culture in union formation. There remains, however, an open
question from our analysis: How can we explain this strong influence of
the Turkish pattern on union-formation behavior for young adults, especially young women who grew up in France? At the individual level, what
are the reasons that motivate the choice of a Turkish immigrant rather
than a young man born in France as a spouse?
Intergenerational Relations and Gender Roles Expectations as Key Issues
in Partner Choice
We have seen that for women, forming a transnational union is strongly
correlated to the existence of family links between partners. Marriages
Union Formation and Partner Choice in a Transnational Context
647
between relatives represent 25 percent of transnational couples. This result
suggests that the partner originates from the parents’ town or village of
origin, which is probably true for other transnational unions too. This
maintenance, in the migration context, of the endogamic and preferential
marriage rules reveals that Turkish immigrant parents, especially those
who come from rural areas, have kept strong links with their family members remaining in Turkey, strong enough for their daughters to marry
their cousin who lives in Turkey. Given that Turkish immigrants have
themselves been married in accordance with these rules, that they feel a
commitment to their family remaining in Turkey and that they also face
attitudes of rejection from French society, we can easily understand that
some of the parents do wish to maintain strong relations with their origin
and to encourage their daughter to marry a spouse originating from their
home region.8 But to what extent is this wish shared by their daughters,
and if it is, how does it pass down from one generation to the other? To
what extent do the Turkish immigrants’ daughters subscribe to the Turkish norms and values? This raises the issue of transmission of values, and
the issue of conflicts and negotiations between generations.
The hypothesis of parental pressure is not really confirmed: only 2
percent of the women and 6 percent of the men mentioned that their parents had introduced them to their spouse, which shows that the practice
of a marriage that is directly arranged by the parents no longer dominates
in the migration context, but about 20 percent of respondents claimed
that they suffered from parental pressure against their marriage and 25
percent experienced a strong encouragement for their marriage. Turkish
parents probably adopt other strategies to orient their children towards a
Turkish partner without proposing or imposing one, such as explaining
how a marriage with a man of their region of origin would please them,
or trying to create opportunities for their daughter to meet young men
during holidays in Turkey, while strictly controlling their nights out in
France. This pleads for the addition of some new questions on parental
control over social life and leisure practices in further quantitative surveys.
8
The same process of weakening of tribes as a starting point for rural exodus and emigration occurred in North Africa. In a qualitative research about affective and sexual life
among descendants of North African immigrants in France, Hamel (2003) observed that
if in certain cases, which seem to be the less frequent, parents want their children to
respect the preferential marriage inside the agnatic lineage or at least in the matrilinear
branch, in other cases parents emigrated in order to escape the pressure and the control of
the group on their own sexual and affective life (Hamel, 2003).
648
International Migration Review
Like all young people, descendants of immigrants have to find a
compromise between their parents’ expectations and their own wishes. Do
they negotiate with their parents and how do they do it? Are they in a
position to reject their parents’ expectations? Some of the young women
of North African origin interviewed by Hamel (2003) in France were facing similar parental expectations and explained they did not want to risk
a break-off with their family by choosing a partner of French origin. They
clearly stated that even though they could fall in love with a ‘‘French’’
young man, they preferred to orient their choice towards a partner acceptable for their parents, that is, a partner of North African origin. They
argued that older sisters who left home at 18 or 20 years old to have a
free choice have experienced very hard material conditions of life and also
huge emotional distress. Thus, in order to understand how the partner
choice occurs, intergenerational relations must be examined in terms of
their affective, material, and power dimensions. The affective and economic cost of breaking off of relations with family in the event of strong
disagreement partly explains why daughters adapt their choice to their
parents’ expectations.
But this can not be sufficient to understand the matrimonial choices
of these young women of Turkish descent. Some of them may share their
parents’ values and expectations and see advantages in the choice of a
partner originating from Turkey. In her ethnographic survey conducted in
the beginning of 1990s with Turkish families living in France, Autan
(1995) notes that both young female and male Turkish immigrants who
arrived at a young age in France (before 14 years old) have conformed to
their parents’ expectations regarding the origin of their partner.
For women, Autan (1995) observes that a marriage with a Turkish
immigrant enables them to transform gender relations in their couple (as
our results show, this is independent from educational attainment).
Indeed, the law regarding family reunification requires the partner living
in France to have an income higher than the legal minimum income of a
full-time job. In their case, the traditional virilocal pattern of residence
does not apply, so they are not subjected to the control of their family-inlaw. Their husband is also dependent on his spouse for all administrative
decisions because of the language barrier. These considerations may help
young women to accept a marriage with a man born in the region of origin in Turkey, even though the relations with their husband in France are
not so easy to manage: their husbands have to adapt to a society where
gender roles and norms are different, and this can create misunderstandings
Union Formation and Partner Choice in a Transnational Context
649
and conflicts. Do these factors also motivate female descendants of
Turkish immigrants to choose a spouse in Turkey? What is the role of
both men’s and women’s representations of gender roles on their choice
of a partner? What are the expectations of the immigrant partner who
marries someone living in Europe?
Thus the study of intergenerational relations and of gender roles
constitutes a key issue in future research for understanding why transnational unions are so frequent.
Sexuality and Relation with the French Environment: The
Competition of Values
We saw that the maintenance of the norm of virginity before marriage for
women is linked to a transnational marriage. Hamel (2006) found among
North African women in France that they had developed three kinds of
discourse about virginity: a first group reacts to the strong stigmatization
to which they and their parents are subject by claiming their attachment
to virginity and their wish to get married with a man of North African
origin while claiming their desire to choose their partner themselves. They
explain that their parents supervise their choice of friends and their social
life, but they also criticize the ‘‘Western pattern’’ of sexuality, considering
that although ‘‘French’’ women are more free, they are not always
respected by French men. They claim to use virginity as a way to select
respectful partners. Claiming their attachment to virginity is also a way to
reassure their parents and to postpone marriage, which enables them to
pursue their education. The second group is composed of young women
who decided not to follow this norm, which was a long and difficult decision, for they had to fight the feeling of betraying their parents’ confidence. Like the women of the first group, they refuse their parents’
stigmatization but they also testify that losing their virginity was a way of
appropriating their body and a kind of release from female subordination.
Women of the third group left their parents’ home when they were
18 years old. They broke off with their parents because they wanted to be
free to choose their partner, because they were against the virginity norm
and, most of all, because they were afraid of proposals of marriage. Their
decision led them to a very precarious situation: it stopped their education, which restricted their ability to find a stable job and some of them
became homeless. Several years after their departure, they were regretting
their decision to leave. This qualitative research has shown that claiming
650
International Migration Review
the attachment to virginity is sometimes used by young women to get
their parents to allow them to study or to choose their husband by themselves, even if it means choosing a husband in North Africa.
The attitude of Turkish immigrants’ daughters toward virginity and
their low rate of marriage to a man born in France can probably be interpreted as the result of negotiations and of compromises between parents
and their children.
CONCLUSION AND OUTLOOK
Although the study presented here is based on a relatively small sample
we are able to contribute to the discussion on the role of culture in shaping union formation by including cultural indicators. Indeed unionformation behaviors are a key topic of research for demography and
anthropology. We showed that the objective of combining the knowledge
produced by these two disciplines has influenced the design of the TIES
survey. This combination appears to be highly relevant for interpreting
the high rate of transnational unions: as we have shown it is strongly
correlated to the attachment to the norm of virginity and to endogamic
marriage.
We found maintenance of Turkish patterns, but also their modification. We can conclude that there seems to be a development towards
a multi-cultural society, in which several cultural patterns cohabit. But
we must also stress that union-formation behaviors of descendants of
Turkish immigrants are a syncretism of two cultures of reference in
the sense that their behaviors are different from those that currently
occur both in Turkey and in France and are at the same time the heritage of these two cultures. The continuing existence of strong family
ties within the Turkish population does not fit either the classical
assimilation theory (Gordon, 1964) or the segmented assimilation theory (Portes and Zhou, 1993) because the values and behaviors are
directed to specifically Turkish roots and not to a French or an immigrant ‘‘mainstream.’’
We used the anthropological approach to explain and highlight the
individual choices. This unquestionably allowed us to better understand
the high rate of transnational marriages, but we do know, as anthropology
has shown so many times, that culture and social norms, especially regarding issues such as affinity, gender relations, and sexuality, are constantly
evolving. This is even truer in a migration context. Hence, we do believe
Union Formation and Partner Choice in a Transnational Context
651
that a historical and comparative perspective should be adopted by taking
into account the history of the Turkish immigration flow in France and
the impact of the French national context.
Our comparison with the descendants of North Africans showed
that the descendants of Turkish immigrants are distinguished by a more
pronounced preference for an immigrant partner. This difference, despite
a common religion, along with the existence of the segmentary system in
North Africa and of the same rules of affinity, invites us to follow the historical perspective to interpret and understand both the high rate of transnational marriages and its correlation with the attachment to virginity.
Indeed, these two groups slightly diverge from each other, for the share of
transnational marriages is much higher among young people of Turkish
origin. The North African migration flow is also much older than the
Turkish one. After several years in France, North African immigrants generally abandon the idea of returning home. Hence, their attachment to
the values of the country of origin decreases as well as their feeling of
being obliged to take account of the opinions of the family back home.
To what extent may the high rate of transnational unions be considered
as a characteristic result of a recent settlement, whatever the country of
origin? This suggestion pleads for a comparison of families who arrived at
different periods in time, which will be possible only several years from
now.
One of the objectives of the TIES project is to investigate the
impact of the country of ‘‘destination’’. Hence, we will have the opportunity to compare the union formation behavior of descendants of Turkish
immigrants in France to that of other Turkish-origin persons in The
Netherlands, Germany, Austria, Belgium, Sweden, and Switzerland. The
comparison with Germany will be highly instructive, as Germany is the
country in Europe were the Turkish immigration flow is the largest and
the oldest, which implies that the second generation in Germany forms a
wide marriage market which may reduce the rate of transnational unions.
652
International Migration Review
APPENDIX
OVERVIEW
OF THE
TABLE A1
TIES SCREENING PROCEDURE
IN
FRANCE
Turkish-sounding names
Successful calls
Respondents who agreed to answer the screening questionnaire
Completed screening questionnaires
Households in which no one is in the target group
Households in which there is at least one person in the target group
Households in which there is an immigrant whose daughter or son is in the
target group, and lives somewhere else
Households in which there is both one person at least in the target group
and an immigrant whose daughter or son is in the target group and lives
somewhere else and is married to a man whose father was not born in Turkey
Total number of persons in the target group
Including the daughters no longer living in their parents’ home, who are
married to a man whose father was not born in Turkey
Selected persons for the survey (one per household)
Including the daughters no longer living in their parents’ home, and married
to a man whose father was not born in Turkey
Persons impossible to contact (after 20 attempts of calling)
Wrong numbers (a mistake occurred when the first respondent delivered
the selected person’s phone number or when the interviewer noted it down)
Successful calls (the interviewer had a contact with the selected person)
Selected person who refused the face-to-face interview
Selected persons who accepted the face-to-face interview but did not come
to the appointment for the face-to-face interview
Usable completed interviews
Including the daughters no longer living in their parents’ home, who are
married to a man whose father was not born in Turkey
DESCRIPTION
OF THE
SAMPLE
TABLE A2
TRANSITION
FOR THE
TO A
72
1,628
16
1,114
5
110
21
983
372
110
500
4
FIRST UNION (%)
Women
First union
Yes
No
Birth cohort
1971–1975
1976–1980
10,550
6,623
2,499
2,231
1,117
1,001
41
Men
TurkishDescent
FrenchDescent
TurkishDescent
FrenchDescent
41
59
49
51
24
76
42
58
9
23
21
31
6
18
23
26
Union Formation and Partner Choice in a Transnational Context
DESCRIPTION
OF THE
TABLE A2 (CONTINUED).
SAMPLE FOR THE TRANSITION TO
A
Women
TurkishFrenchDescent
Descent
1981–1985
1986+
Place of residence
Paris
Strasbourg
Educational attainment
Vocational higher secondary level
Academic higher secondary level
Tertiary education
Religion during childhood
None (or other)
Christian
Muslim
Number of siblings
0
1–2
3+
Father with higher education
No
Yes
Missing values
Mother with higher education
No
Yes
Missing values
%
N
653
FIRST UNION (%)
Men
TurkishDescent
FrenchDescent
28
40
27
21
28
47
21
29
45
55
49
51
56
44
50
50
46
29
26
16
21
63
50
26
24
24
24
52
19
2
79
46
54
1
25
2
73
42
57
1
5
50
46
12
70
19
7
56
37
14
66
20
70
24
6
16
76
9
71
26
3
10
82
8
77
19
4
100
218
20
76
4
100
188
74
23
3
100
282
17
76
7
100
163
Source: Calculations based on TIES France 2007.
Note: Shares do not add up to 100% because of rounded figures.
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