Transition to adulthoof of descendants of Turkish immigrants in France: the interplay between leaving parental home, labor-market entry, and union formation

Christelle Hamel, Institut National d'Études Démographiques (INED)
Nadja Milewski, University of Rostock, Institute for Sociology and Demography

Around 3 millions of Turkish immigrants live in Europe. The descendants of these first immigrants are in the phase of the transition to adulthood and family formation today. A new project called The Integration of the European Second Generation (TIES) has been launched in 2003 in order to pay special attention to the second generation living in eight Western European countries. The French sample includes about 500 persons who were born in France and who have one or two parents born in Turkey. The number of persons with two parents born in France in the sample is 351. The respondents are 18 to 35 years old. Our paper focuses on the transition to adulthood of the migrants’ descendants in France. We thereby understand leaving parental home, union formation, and the labor-market entry as well as the interplay between these processes. The goal of our paper is to explore the patterns of these transitions. Does the transition to adulthood of second generation of Turkish descent in France resemble the one of natives? If not, what are the differences and their causes? We apply intensity-regression analysis to leaving parental home, transition to the first union of women and men, and to the labor-market entry and give special attention to the role of the cultural and the family background. The first results show that women and men of the second generation of Turkish descent leave the parental home later than native French. Among descendants of Turkish origin, the main reason for leaving the parental home is a marriage whereas women and men of French origin leave for education or work and are more likely to live alone or in non-marital cohabitation.