Migrant Families in Europe Evidence from the Generations & Gender Programme (editors' conclusions)

While in previous eras Europe was mostly a region of emigration, this pattern reversed when living standards increased in the 19th century. The end of theSecond World War marked an especially large growth of immigration to western Europe, mostly originated from former colonies and from surrounding Europeanand non-European countries. In 2004 and 2007 the territory of the European Union was enlarged with the inclusion of several central and eastern Europeancountries, resulting in a notable influx of immigrants from these new Member States to western Europe. Nowadays in the European Union, about a fifth of households include at least one person who was not born in that country (first-generation migrant) or has at least one foreign-born parent (second-generation migrant) (Agafiţei & Ivan, 2016).In view of the fact that the proportion of the population of non-native origin is increasing rapidly, Europe is challenged to understand how best to integratethese migrants in their societies, not only economically, but also socially and culturally. This hinges on data sources that capture these types of information.The Generations and Gender Programme (GGP) offers such data, and its use has contributed greatly to migration research, especially to understanding MigrantFamilies. The articles in this Discussion Paper capture a selection of research based on GGP data studying migrants in France, Germany, the Netherlandsand Estonia