The Unprivileged Migrant Descendants: The Life-Course and Transition to Adulthood

Migration research has produced many theoretical insights into the integration processes of migrants and their children. There are, however, virtually no theoretical frameworks which consider the specific experiences of refugee families and their children, nor the case of those Swiss-born young whose parents came from an African or Asian country. Until now, these groups have been subsumed into the research evidence on the experiences of the children of labour migrants, mainly coming from European countries – the so-called second generation. Thus, the most unprivileged members of the second generation are absent from research. Unprivileged youth – defined in this project as those who have poorly educated parents with a refugee background and/or with African/Asian origins – became of age and represent a growing number among the second generation. It is therefore urgent to study their situation and the respective role in their life course played by class, racialisation, gender and legal background.

The research on migrants’ descendants provides contrasting results in Switzerland. These show polarised educational success with an over-representation of migrants’ descendants at both the bottom and top levels of school achievement. They also highlight paradoxical results with, for example, migrant descendants who are economically well integrated but who, at the same time, often feel discriminated against. Therefore more research is needed to better understand the reasons behind these results. Our proposed study – UNPRIVILEGED-Y – will be the first in Switzerland to systematically disentangle specific mechanisms of disadvantage among unprivileged youth that may result in their exclusion despite their diplomas acquired in Switzerland and a dynamic labour market. It will address this main question: What influence does being born in an unprivileged migrant family have on the life-course of these children transiting to adulthood in Switzerland? In order to answer to this question, this project proposes:

1) To measure and describe the educational attainment and entry onto the labour market of the unprivileged second generation, based on the secondary analysis of registers (LABB SFSO) and a structural survey, matched with the registers of foreigners in order to verify the context in which migration took place. The analysis will compare the educational and professional situations between the different groups of interest (unprivileged members of the second generation with or without a refugee background, other second generation migrants and natives) according to the cantonal contexts and their gender, after taking into account the socio-demographic dimensions. This analysis will specify the exact design of the qualitative part.

2a) To conduct 120 qualitative retrospective interviews with migrant descendants of different origins: i) 20 whose parents came as refugees from Europe (the Former Yugoslavia and Turkey) and ii) 20 whose parents came as labour migrants from the same countries; iii) 20 whose parents came as refugees from African or iv) 20 from Asian countries; and v) 20 whose parents came from African or iv) 20 from Asian countries but without a refugee background. The common criteria for inclusion in the groups will be low-educated parents and being aged between 25 and 35 years old. Each group will be composed of equal numbers of men and women. We will conduct interviews which aim to grasp the experiences, difficulties and ways to overcome them at the different turning points of the transition to adulthood;

2b) To carry out 30 semi-structured interviews with the parents of these young people in order to better understand the context in which their offspring grew up, the family story and any difficult experiences not shared with the children.

Our project will allow us to identify, through an extended comparative approach, the pathways into adulthood and the specific difficulties faced by the descendants of European and non-European refugees and racialised descendants of migrants. This will be instrumental for practitioners and to educational, labour and social policies.