Acculturation, decoupling, or both? Migration’s impact on the linkage between religiosity and gender equality attitudes

Abstract

Turkish migrants are one of the largest minority groups within Europe, the majority of which is Muslim. Radical right politicians stress the threat of Islam for what they consider European culture. Yet we know that migrant communities can adapt to the destination society culturally, albeit not always and in complex ways. This study aims advance our understand of this complex matter, as it analyses how such attitudinal developments take place and in what way religion plays a role. Through acculturation processes, where Muslim migrants become more secular and consequently more open to gender equal norms, and/or through decoupling, where migration leads to weaker connections between religious identity and patriarchal gender norms. With the use of the 2000Families data on Turkish Muslim Europeanmigrants and Turkish-Muslim stayers, we find that the connection between religiosity and gender equality attitudes is genderdependent. Across the board findings indicate limited support for both mechanisms. However, we do cautiously conclude that we find both acculturation and decoupling processes among migrant men with regard to individual religiosity, while we find decoupling between communal religiosity and gender-equality attitudes in migrant women. This suggests migrants undergo a range of acculturation processes simultaneously, but that the linkages for men and women differ between these dimensions.

Acculturation and decoupling processes on attitudes towards gay marriage: A survey study in Denmark and the Netherlands among Russian Christian and Turkish Muslim migrants

“…While previous research among Turkish migrants on the topic also showed that attitudinal change happens over generations (Van Klingeren & Spierings, 2020), it apparently does not necessarily change within the first generation. Or at least, the changes are not large (or fast) enough to be substantial, and therefore they do not show in our regression models.…”

“…Hence, a great deal of previous research has focused on the association between the level of religiosity and moral conservatism in relation to the immigrant-native disparities in religiousness (e.g. Berry, 1980;Röder, 2015;Van Klingeren & Spierings, 2020). Denomination has been found to matter greatly in the extent to which religion plays a role in attitudes towards alternative sexual orientation (Anderson & Koc, 2015;Roggemans, Spruyt, Droogenbroeck & Keppens, 2015;Van den Akker et al, 2013).…”

“…One reason to believe that acculturation processes are less common among Turkish Muslims than Russian Orthodox Christians, is the fact that religion is in many ways more intertwined with identity for the former group. Even though various European survey studies have showed that mosque-attendance is relatively moderate among Muslims in Western Europe, religious commitment, and communal gatherings with religious traits such as almsgiving and fasting during the Ramadan, play a large role nonetheless (Van Klingeren & Spierings, 2020).…”

“…Previous research also tells us that migrants tend to adjust their attitudes over time, as they move more closely towards the general public opinion of their receiving countries (Cochrane, 2013;Van Klingeren & Spierings, 2020;Berry, 1980;Röder, 2015), and that this does not always coincide with a reduction in religiosity. Röder (2015) and others have studied whether religious disengagement has caused Muslim and Eastern-European migrants to adapt their overall attitudes (i.e., acculturation; (Röder & Lubbers, 2015, 2016Röder & Mühlau, 2014)), or whether this happens because attitudes disconnect from religious identity (i.e., decoupling), or perhaps even both (Van Klingeren & Spierings, 2020;Röder, 2015). The underlying argument is that there are generally strong linkages between people's level of religiosity and norm-based attitudes, as both are considered crucial parts of one's identity (Anderson & Koc, 2015;Inglehart, 1997;Verkuyten & Martinovic, 2012).…”

Negotiating two worlds: An exploration of Moroccan Belgian youths’ lived experience of gender identity

“…In addition to the family as the primary socialisation context, school constitutes another important context in the construction of gender identity (Van Klingeren & Spierings, 2020). Even though Muslim parents perceive school as providing great potentiality for the youths' future, there also arises a certain ambivalence toward this assimilative institution which promotes the values of Belgian society.…”