Conference Programme (PDF, 1019KB) - Trinity College Dublin

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Goldthorpe 1985; Kerckhoff et al. 1985), on specific groups such as Chinese in the two countries (Cheng 1994) and on similar groups at a
particular point of time (Model 2005), and although a great deal of research has been done on the ethnic socio-economic profiles in each
of the two countries, and some with specific regard to the second generation (for the latest in the debate, see Waters et al. forthcoming;
Portes et al. 2009), there has been, to the best of my knowledge, no research on the patterns and trends of socio-economic integration
comparing similar minority ethnic groups in the two countries, the very analysis that can attest to the competing claims of the relative
social fluidity and the differential trajectory theories. It is this dual but closely related research question that this paper seeks to address.
Using micro-data from the two most recent Censuses of the Population (3% Samples of Anonymised Records in Britain and 6% Integrated
Public Use Microdata series in the USA for 1990/1 and 2000/1) with over twenty million records and standardising key variables on
ethnicity, education, class, employment status and other demographics such as age, marital status, dependent children and health status
which have generally been found in existing research to exert significant impacts on educational and, particularly, occupational
attainment, this paper examines the patterns and trends of tertiary education and labour market position of the second generation in the
two countries. With regard to ethnicity, we differentiate White, Black Caribbean, Black African (or African American in the US), Indian,
Pakistani/Bangladeshi and Chinese in both countries and, in addition, two US-specific groups: Mexican and (non-Mexican) Hispanic.
Some of these groups such as Indians and Pakistanis/Bangladeshis are rarely separately listed in US research but their differentiation is
essential for the cross-country analysis.
Both descriptive and multivariate analyses are used. As for the modelling exercises, a range of techniques are employed, from loglinear
and unidiff models to test the overall and the changing patterns of social fluidity in the two countries, to logit modelling for education and
conditional mixed-process modelling for labour market position where more refined analyses can be conducted with regard to the
impacts of socio-cultural attributes on the outcomes of interest. The latter method is particularly appropriate for our research purposes,
as we wish to analyse the combination of occupational and employment statuses, namely, firstly the selection effects on labour market
participation (to test the thesis of ‘rising aspiration and growing reservation wages for the second generation) and then, for those who are
economically active, the social hierarchy within the occupational order ranging from unemployment, to routine manual jobs, to
intermediate jobs and through to privileged professional and managerial salariat positions. All such analysis is aimed at testing
expectations from the straight-line and the segmented assimilation theories on the one hand and the long-standing thesis of American
Exceptionalism on the other.
The findings show that the second generation in both countries were making progress but some groups were still facing heavy
disadvantages and ethnic penalties. The results in the patterns are not incompatible with the segmented assimilation theory but the
trends data lend greater support to the straight-line assimilation theory. We also show that the second generation were doing better in
the US than in Britain but the gaps were being closed, showing that the American Exceptionalism was losing its edge. As some groups
were persistently disadvantaged in both countries, governments, employers and the wider society must do more to help the most
vulnerable in achieving upward mobility. Parental and community support are surely important and necessary but are unlikely
to achieve social equality without effective societal mobilisation.
A cross-national investigation of secularization among the children of Turkish and Moroccan immigrants
*Ruud Koopmans, WZB Wissenschaftszentrum Berlin (Social Science Research Center), Germany
Evelyn Ersanilli, University of Oxford, UK
Most European countries have a significant share of immigrants who adhere to Islam. Whereas the majority of European countries has
seen a trend towards secularization, studies have shown that the degree of religiosity among Muslim immigrants remains high, also in
later generations (see e.g. Diehl & Koenig, 2009; Phalet, Gijsberts & Hagendoorn, 2008). In this paper we analyse Islamic religiosity of
immigrants from three different angles; host-country context, region of origin and individual-level factors. We investigate the effects of
two host-country level factors; the degree of accommodation of Islam and Islamic religious practice and the level of secularisation in
the host country. Data come from a survey among Turkish immigrants and their children in six European countries; France, Germany,
the Netherlands, Belgium, Austria and Sweden. These countries have accommodated Islam to different degrees and also vary in their
degrees of secularisation.
The regional origins of Turkish immigrants vary and variation across destination countries may be explained by the religiosity in the region
of origin of the migrants. Region of origin effects are operationalised as GDP and support for the Islamist AK party in Turkey in the 2007
general elections. Finally, we look at the effect of individual level factors such as generation, education and labour-market participation.
Four different areas of religiosity are investigated: religious affiliation, identification, religious practice (mosque visiting, halal diet,
participation in Ramadan, headscarf wearing) and attitudes.
The results show no clear connection between the two host-country context factors and degrees of Islamic religiosity. There are however
important effects of the region of origin. People who come from more religious regions tend to retain a higher degree of religiosity in the
host country as well.
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