Transnational marriages: National policies, generational transmissions, and gender dynamics–a biographical policy evaluation perspective

Abstract

A significant challenge to the understanding of generational transmissions and decisions in migrant families is the unexpectedly emerging orientation of well-educated and socially integrated young German women of Turkish or Moroccan descent towards transnational marriages with husbands from the country of origin of their parents or grandparents. Marriage migrations from Turkey and Morocco may involve trans-border migrations between an EU and a non-EU country with one non-citizen spouse; alternatively, they may take place as family reunification within transnational communities. Our article, by using the method of biographical hermeneutic interpretations of narrations of migrant couples, tries to avoid ‘the state’s lens’ on marriage migration by reconstructing ‘biographical policy evaluation’ by the subjects involved. In conclusion, we will present our reflections regarding the analysis of our empirical case studies. © 2021 European Sociological Association.