Intergenerational Conflicts in Migrant and Native Families: An Exploration of the Connection with Leaving Home

Helga A. G. de Valk, Vrije Universiteit Brussel

Migration and adaptation to new customs in the receiving context are often perceived a stressful event for the family making intergenerational tensions between parents and children more common in migrant families than in majority group families. In this paper I study the intergenerational conflicts with parents of young adults in a multi ethnic sample (TIES study; N=7,200) of 18 to 35 year old second generation migrants and their native peers in six European countries. First of all I question whether second generation young adults report more and different intergenerational conflicts at age 17 than is the case for their peers of native background. Secondly I assess the factors that are related to more or less conflicts within and between each of the groups of origin. Finally, I study whether and how intergenerational tensions at age 17 are related with patterns of leaving home among the different origin groups.