Matthijs Kalmijn

Limited social integration can have adverse effects on both migrants and host communities. For the case of international retirement migrants, previous evidence suggests that migrants struggle to integrate into the local community. Using a novel survey of Dutch retirement migrants based on a probability sample (DRM 2021), we describe and explain Dutch retirement migrants’ social integration with locals, Dutch migrants, and non-Dutch migrants in thirty-five destination countries. Findings show that, on average, Dutch retirement migrants have the most contact with locals, followed by Dutch migrants and the least contact with non-Dutch migrants. According to our multilevel analyses, an important country-level predictor of decreased local contact was linguistic dissimilarity between origin and destination languages. Contact with locals versus migrants was also affected by the relative size of the migrant group in the destination. Significant individual-level sociocultural predictors were previous connections to the destination, which was associated with increased local contact, and stronger national identification, which was associated with having more friendships with Dutch migrants. Overall, the results reveal the effect of preferences and opportunity structures on retirement migrants’ social integration.

Objective: This study explores how geographical distance between adult children of immigrants and their parents changes in response to partnership formation and partnership dissolution. Background: Geographical distance between generations is a key factor in intergenerational support. However, there is limited knowledge about how proximity changes over the life course, with most research confined to Western cultural settings. The lack of comparative work is surprising since intergenerational proximity and solidarity are often associated with an international migration background. Methods: Using longitudinal register data from the Netherlands, we follow individuals born to parents from Suriname, Turkey, and the Netherlands, assessing their geographical distance from parents between ages 22 and 42. Two‐part regression models with impact function specifications are employed to estimate the effects of partnership formation and dissolution on intergenerational proximity. Results: In all groups, intergenerational distance increased with partnership formation and decreased following partnership dissolution. In the case of partnership formation, the divergence effect was stronger for women than for men. Following partnership dissolution, the convergence effect was stronger for women than for men of Turkish origin, but similar for men and women of Surinamese and Dutch origin. Leaving home for partnership formation and returning home after partnership dissolution played an important role in explaining the changes in proximity, especially for individuals of Dutch origin, and for men more than for women in all groups. Conclusion: Our findings confirm the effects of partnership transitions on intergenerational distance among migrant families and emphasize cultural influences on intergenerational gendered proximity and family interdependencies in migrant communities.

Objective: This study investigates the association between mothers' socioeconomic status (SES) and joint physical custody among children, focusing on how the SES gradient in joint physical custody relates to its country‐specific prevalence. Background: Joint physical custody has become increasingly common in post‐divorce family arrangements. While joint physical custody can have a positive impact on child wellbeing, it is more prevalent in higher‐SES families, potentially increasing inequalities in divorce effects. Existing research has overlooked how country‐level characteristics, such as the prevalence of joint physical custody, impact the SES gradient in custody. Method: Using data from the “Health Behaviour in School‐aged Children” (HBSC) studies of 2005/2006 and 2009/2010, we analyzed approximately 50,000 children aged 11, 13, and 15 in 32 countries. The analysis employed a multilevel design with children nested within countries as well as meta‐regression analyses. Results: Findings indicate a positive association between mothers' SES and the likelihood of joint custody. Moreover, the strength of the link between mothers' SES and joint physical custody varies significantly across countries. The country‐specific prevalence of joint physical custody moderates the link between the SES gradient and joint physical custody. The more common joint custody is in countries, the stronger the SES gradient in joint physical custody. Conclusion: Countries with a higher prevalence of joint physical custody show a stronger SES gradient, suggesting that the expansion of joint physical custody may introduce socioeconomic inequalities in the consequences of divorce.

Many studies demonstrated protective effects of marriage on health, but studies on the reverse pathway are more limited and provided mixed findings. Using large-scale data from annual longitudinal panel surveys, the current article estimates discrete-time event-history models to analyze how self-rated health affects transitions in and out of marriage and cohabitation. Harmonized panel data are used for Australia, Germany, (South) Korea, Russia, Switzerland, and the United Kingdom. The study finds adverse effects of poor self-rated health on all transitions: union formation, marriage formation, separation, divorce, and repartnering. Effects were smaller for the formation than for the dissolution of unions and smaller for the transition to cohabitation than to marriage. Few gender differences were found, but health effects on union dissolution declined with age. With exceptions, the impact of health was strikingly similar across the six countries. In general, the findings suggest an accumulation of health-related inequalities in the marriage market.

In this manual, we present the design and content of the CPF, explain the logic of the project, workflow, and technical details. We also describe the CPF’s open-science platform. The first version of CPF was prepared by Konrad Turek, Thomas Leopold and Matthijs Kalmijn, and published in December 2020.The Comparative Panel File (CPF) harmonizes household panel data from seven of the world’s most important longitudinal surveys: Australia (HILDA), Germany (SOEP), Great Britain (BHPS/UKHLS), South Korea (KLIPS), Switzerland (SHP), the United States (PSID), and the Netherlands (LISS). These studies offer rich, multi-decade information on individuals and households.The project aims to support the social science community in analyzing comparative life course data. CPF provides open-source Stata code that links and harmonizes these data into a unified three-level panel structure, enabling comparative life course and social science research. The project is designed for flexibility—users can customize the code to suit their own variables, countries, and samples. It supports both straightforward use and advanced extensions. CPF is not a data product, but a community-driven harmonization tool. Users must download original data from national sources and apply the CPF code to generate the harmonized dataset.

Insecurities and risks related to ageing in a foreign country could fuel return migration among international retirement migrants. The few studies examining retirement migrants' return have been small in scale and focused mainly on return intentions rather than return behaviour. In this paper, we examine the prevalence and predictors of return migration among retirement migrants and the discrepancy between return intentions and return behaviour. We collected survey data on a representative sample of 5,065 Dutch retirement migrants in 40 destinations and combined them with administrative data on return migration. Three years after data collection, almost 9 per cent had returned to the Netherlands, whereas less than 5 per cent had intended to return during this period. Our findings show how age-related changes and transnational ties to the country of origin increase the likelihood of return. Our results also suggest that retirement migrants may underestimate the long-term implications and social embeddedness of the return migration decision.

Volume 52 - Article 35 | Pages 1111–1122