The Children of Intermarriage in Four European Countries: Implications for School Achievement, Social Contacts, and Cultural Values

This article tests the thesis that intermarriage fosters the integration of immigrants by studying the children of intermarriage. Using secondary school-based questionnaire data from England, Germany, the Netherlands, and Sweden, I compare the children of mixed marriages to second-generation immigrants and to children of native origins. Three dimensions of integration are measured: social integration (contacts with natives), cultural integration (religiosity and family values), and economic integration (school achievement tests). I examine the effect of intermarriage on these outcomes as well as interactions with gender, socioeconomic status, destination country, and origin group. Our findings show that the outcomes for the children of mixed origins are in between the outcomes of immigrants and natives. In some respects, mixed children are exactly halfway, confirming a model of additive effects of parental origins. In other cases, mixed children are closer to immigrants than to natives, pointing to a model of stigmatization and ethnic retentionism.