ABSTRACT
Intraethnic marriages are often situated within the ongoing debate on transnationalism as denoting belonging and reproducing ethnic consciousness through kinship ties. Kalmijn's classification of explanations for marriage behaviour is taken as point of departure and will be extended to the case of intraethnic marriages. While other channels of migration have been closed off, marriage migration offers one of the last routes to enter Western Europe. Both stem from international comparative surveys, Six Country Immigrant Integration Comparative Survey (SCIICS) and EURISLAM, focusing on migrants from countries with large Muslim numbers. Transnational marriages are expected to decrease when the size of the ethnic community in the receiving country increases. The most common types are transnational marriages followed by marriages between co-ethnic migrants. To assess the liberalism of family reunification policies, the chapter draws on the measurement of family reunification policies in the ICRI data.
