News and updates – The Third Generation

First ThirdGen Advisory Board Meeting

Reviewing the Survey Questionnaire

On February 14, 2025, the ThirdGen Project team hosted a Scientific Advisory Board meeting at the University of Warwick Campus, bringing together eleven esteemed members from across Europe for scholarly engagement and a critical evaluation of the draft questionnaire. The primary objective of the meeting was to review, refine and improve the designed survey questionnaire for the study, drawing on the expertise of the advisory board members.

The meeting took place in person at the University of Warwick, where Professor Ayse Guveli, the Principal Investigator, provided a concise overview of the research project. Following this introduction, the team engaged in four dedicated sessions, with groups of scholars addressing a specific thematic area to improve the questionnaire. These discussions facilitated a critical evaluation of the survey’s content, wording, and methodological approach, ensuring it effectively captures the nuanced experiences of the study’s target population and ethical concerns around question-wording. The meeting concluded with actionable recommendations to improve the questionnaire further, marking a significant step forward in the project’s development.

A new policy brief on migration and dissimilation published

Researchers from the ThirdGen Study have published a new policy brief on migrant adaptation and integration from a dissimilation perspective. The policy brief makes a case for a new perspective on migration studies to examine better the changes occurring in migrant individuals’ lives. Unlike the traditional studies comparing migrants to the so-called native groups in the destination context, the authors suggest that an origin comparison is likely to shed new light on the actual changes occurring in migrant families. They go on to showcase their research from the 2000 Families Study using an origins approach and set the agenda for future research in this area.

The policy brief was written by Sait Bayrakdar, Sebnem Eroglu-Hawksworth, and Ayse Guveli and published on the Population Europe website as part of their Policy Insight series. It is available to read here.

Expert meeting discusses state of elderly care among migrant families

Expert meeting

Policymakers, practitioners and academics working in the area of elderly care and migration came together for an expert meeting organised by the ThirdGen Project research team and Population Europe. This invitation-only event took place on November 13th to bring together stakeholders to discuss the current state of formal and informal elderly care arrangements prevalent among migrant families and explore the ways that they can respond to their unique care needs.

The attendees reflected on the current issues and challenges around elderly care across various European contexts and the origin country Turkey. They shared the policy landscape for the countries they work in and highlighted the challenge for migrant families in accessing formal care provision.

Preferences of care arrangements in migrant families were also discussed with a particular emphasis on how generic care policies often fall short of catering for the unique needs of these families.

Experts pointed out that migrant families prefer to provide care for their elderly within the families. However, such preferences are weakening in younger generations who are more open to utilising the formal provisions. Sector professionals also noted that governments increasingly avoid the fully formal care provisions and promoting a more hybrid arrangements where family members are encouraged to take a role in the care provision.

Public talk

Principal Investigator Professor Ayse Guveli of the ThirdGen project gave a public talk after the expert meeting. She discussed her extensive body of work on migrant outcomes from a dissimilation perspective. That is, how migrant and their descendants compare to those left behind. It gave an account of migrant’s advancements in different domains of life, including education, labour market, and family formation. The event was held online and attended by 226 people, including policy representatives, practitioners, and the general public.

Integration of third generation migrants focus of £2.75m research programme

The grandchildren of Turkish migrants across Europe will be interviewed as part of a major research project led by Professor Ayse Guveli from the Department of Sociology and supported by a €2.75 million funding award from the European Research Council.

The ThirdGen project explores the long-term impact of migration on the third generation of Turkish migrant families and their assimilation patterns across different European countries, especially their socioeconomic position and family set ups.

Ayse who is leading the five-year project, said:

“Research has produced extensive knowledge about migrants and their children. But we know almost nothing about the third generation – the grandchildren. Studying the third generation will reveal the long-term implications of migration.

“Now, the grandchildren have grown, enabling us, for the first time, to study their life transitions, job trajectories, migration histories, family set ups, religion, gender roles, and many more factors.

“Has their socioeconomic position improved? Do they still plan to look after their elderly relatives at home? What role do religion and gender play on these?

Extending findings

Ayse explained that the funding is enabling her to extend the findings of her previous research into the migration histories of Turks in Europe which researched the lives of 2,000 families of Turkish migrants, comparing them to the families of Turkish men who stayed in Turkey.

She added:

“I am most grateful to the European Research Council for the funding for this project which will answer new research questions on the long-term impact of migration on the Third Generation.”

President of the European Research Council Professor Maria Leptin said:

“ERC Consolidator grants support researchers at a crucial time of their careers, strengthening their independence, reinforcing their teams and helping them establish themselves as leaders in their fields. And this backing above all gives them a chance to pursue their scientific dreams.”