Poverty across generations among individuals with and without migration background: The role of family relations, social networks and spatial contexts

• Applicant: Professorin Dr. Petra Böhnke
• Subject Area: Empirical Social Research
• Term: from 2016 to 2021
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 316896597

Despite successful integration and improved social and economic circumstances, migrant offspring are far more affected by poverty than individuals with a non-migration history, especially when they have been raised in poverty. Why does poverty manifest itself over generations? The focus of the project is to compare and identify the fundamental processes and determinants amongst individuals with and without a migration history. The emphasis thereby lies in the role of family relations, social networks and socio-spatial context factors. The presumption is that there are specific conditions attached to the migrant situation that reinforce the inheritance of poverty over these mechanisms. Socialization theories serve as a theoretical background with focus on inter-generational reproduction of social inequality as well as migration and network sociology. For the first time, conclusions will be drawn in the quantitative-empirical section of the project, from data in parent and child households (SOEP, pairfam) about the determinants that propagate the dissemination of poverty over generations. In the qualtitative part of the project, we will expand on these findings by means of interviews with children and their parents in order to define socio-spatially embedded family perceptions, patterns of interpretation and tradition.

• DFG Programme: Research Grants