Gendered inequalities in occupational attainment of migrants and their descendants: An intergenerational comparison with stayers in the country of origin

This is the first study to compare migrants to Europe and their Europe-born descendants with stayers in the country of origin to examine the role of migration, gender and parental socioeconomic status in shaping occupational attainment. The study integrates the classic social mobility and migration literatures to disentangle the direct impact of parental education on occupational status within the migration context. It draws on the pioneering 2000 Families Survey, which locates the first-generation men who moved to Europe from five high migrant-sending regions in Turkey during the guest-worker years of 1961 to 1974 and those who stayed behind, and traces their male and female family members across Turkey and Europe. The data were obtained from proxy interviews performed to generate basic socioeconomic and demographic information about nearly 20,000 individuals nested within 1,544 families. Based on data on men and women with current or past employment, the results demonstrate a significant tendency for migrants to attain less prestigious occupations than stayers with commensurate education. Migrant men prove even more disadvantaged; Europe-born descendants have lower returns to their educational qualifications than the stayers in Turkey. Europe-born women, however, fare better than Europe-born men. Contrary to the classic assumptions about occupational attainment, parental education has a direct influence on children’s job prospects to extents varying by gender and migration status. Of the migrants, men do not necessarily benefit from being born to more educated parents. Parental education makes a positive difference for migrant women but to a lesser extent than for their stayer and Europe-born counterparts. Parental education, however, prevents Europe-born men from slipping further down the occupational ladder.