Background of the TIES surveys

The aim of the TIES project was to investigate the integration of children of immigrants. These children were born in the survey country and have at least one parent who was born in Turkey, Morocco or former Yugoslavia. Such children are also known as ‘the second generation’. The focus was on the second generation living in two major areas of concentration, i.e. cities, in each survey country (Crul and Heering 2008; Mulder and Zorlu 2008). The choice of these three groups was straightforward they have rather similar starting positions as children of labour immigrants while the migration history and cultural background of their parents is comparable. The TIES project also surveyed members of a comparison group of which both parents were born in the survey country. This comparison group was included because they interact with and hold perceptions about the second generation (IMES and NIDI 2010).

Data collection in the two cities in each survey country was carried out by local survey bureaus under the auspices of nine national TIES partner institutes: Netherlands Interdisciplinary Demographic Institute (NIDI) and Institute for Migration and Ethnic Studies (IMES) of the University of Amsterdam in the Netherlands, the Institute for Social and Political Opinion Research (ISPO), University of Leuven in Belgium; the National Institute for Demographic Studies (INED) in France; the Swiss Forum for Migration and Population Studies (SFM) of the University of Neuchâtel in Switzerland; the Centre for Research in International Migration and Ethnic Relations (CEIFO) of the University of Stockholm in Sweden; the Institute for Migration Research and Intercultural Studies (IMIS) of the University of Osnabrück in Germany, the Institute for the Study of Migration (IEM) of the Pontifical Comillas University of Madrid in Spain, and the Institute for European Integration Research (EIF) of the Austrian Academy of Sciences in Austria.

In the Netherlands, respondents of the Turkish and Moroccan second generation were surveyed as well as members of a comparison group. Respondents were residents of the cities of Amsterdam and Rotterdam and in the age range 18-35 at the time of sampling (April 2006). In Amsterdam 237 second generation Turks, 242 second generation Moroccans and 259 comparison group members were interviewed, while in Rotterdam the numbers were, respectively, 263, 251, and 253, totalling 1505 respondents. The interviews were conducted between June 2006 and July 2007.