Living arrangements of immigrants’ children in Europe

The increasing interest in children of immigrants is not surprising given that they are reshaping European societies and their behavioral patterns represent a challenging issue. Many studies have been devoted to their educational outcomes and social mobility pathways while family dynamics and patterns among immigrants and ethnic minorities were under-researched topics for many years, especially in the Southern Europe where the peculiar traits of migration regime may play a role. In this paper, we aim at analyzing living arrangements and household behaviors of immigrant descendants encountering three dimensions, namely migration generation, area of origin and area of destination. Using the 2008 ad-hoc module on migrant workers of the EU Labor Force Survey, we found that young migrants or descendants of migrant parents are strongly influenced by different contextual behaviors according to their country of destination supporting the existence of at least two main different patterns of living arrangements in Europe. In the Centre-North European countries, the behaviors of immigrants’ children tend to align with those of the majority of the population suggesting a prevailing adaptation mechanism. Conversely, in the Mediterranean countries, we also found evidence of a socialization effect linked to the persistent role of cultural traits acquired by parents in their country of origin and transmitted to their children.