European movers’ language use patterns at home: a case-study of European bi-national families in the Netherlands

Abstract:

Language use patterns, generally involving the majority and/or a minority language, are considered to be an indicator of migrants’ integration in the host society.

In this paper, we aim to broaden our understanding of migrants’ language use in the family by investigating which factors explain individual variation in language use patterns in European bi-national households. Our analysis is based on the Dutch data of the EUMARR survey, a unique data set on European bi-national unions (n = 627).

Our findings indicate that most European migrants intend to pass their native language to their offspring. Furthermore, the results provide evidence for the embeddedness of families’ language use patterns within broader social environments. Finally, the findings indicate the importance of language status for the transmission of minority languages within mixed families.