Michael de Laine

By Michael de Laine, The Copenhagen Voice, 7 October 2009

Changes to the rules for family reunification have led young people from ethnic minorities to marry later in life, a new report from the Danish National Centre for Social Research shows. The new rules have also resulted in higher emigration to Sweden and to a new form of marriage - ‘commuter marriages’. But the trend in forced marriages is difficult to quantify.

Changes to the regulations for family reunification in recent years have led young people from ethnic minorities to marry later in life, a report just published by the Danish National Centre for Social Research (SFI) shows.

Whereas 30% of 21-year-old women from ethnic minorities were married before the new regulations, this fell to 10% after they took effect in 2002.

The report, ‘Ændrede familiesammenføringsregler. Hvad har de nye regler betydet for pardannelsesmønstret blandt etniske minoriteter? (Altered family reunification regulations. What is the impact of the new regulations on the pattern for forming couples among ethnic minorities?)’, also concludes that the new rules have resulted in a fall in the number of family reunifications with spouses from the couples’ country of origin. This fall is particularly large among people aged 20-23.

But regulations have only resulted in a limited rise in the number of young people who marry residents of Denmark, no matter whether they come from an ethnic minority or are ethnic Danes.

In fact, few young people from ethnic minorities marry Danish residents of the same or different ethnic origin. The SFI researchers say this can result from the relatively small size of the ethnic groups. But it may also be due to different attitudes towards marriage held by men and women in the ethnic minorities, and that they do not look to these groups for possible spouses.

“As with the increase in age of marriage and its consequent fall in the number of family reunified spouses, this situation can also reflect a development that existed already in 2002, when the new rules came into force,” the researchers say.

“There can also be traditional arranged marriages between young people who both live in Denmark,” they add.

Other conclusions from the report are that the new regulations have resulted in higher emigration to Sweden and to a new form of marriage - ‘commuter marriages’.

The researchers who wrote the report say that it is difficult to give a picture of the development in forced marriages, partly because of limited statistics resulting from a lack of systematic registration of approaches about forced marriages to authorities and advice centres.

“The professionals we have interviewed disagree about whether the changed rules have resulted in a fall in the number of forced marriages,” the researchers say in the report. “In fact, it is their experience that forced marriages are an increasingly important reason why woman approach e.g. crisis centres for women. But that could be due to a change in attitude among the young woman and to a more open approach to the subject.”

The SFI report notes a rising trend among young people from ethnic minorities - especially those of Pakistani descent and those aged 25 - to emigrate to Sweden.

The report lists the Danish legislation, the possibility of cheaper housing in Sweden, and a more positive Swedish integration effort as reasons for moving to Sweden.

Among the results of the new family reunification regulations are ‘commuter marriages’, where one spouse lives in Denmark and the other in his or her land of origin.

“This means that the couple live separately for shorter or longer periods and are only together for instance when the partner living abroad can get a tourist visa to Denmark,” the SFI researchers say. “Such ‘commuter marriages’ seem to suffer from a certain turbulence - not least for the children who are born in Denmark.”

The researchers say it is impossible to determine how many ‘commuter marriages’ there are.

The SFI researchers also studied marriages that were not registered under and are not covered by the Danish law - for example marriages that are contracted with a religious blessing but which have no legal validity in Denmark.

“This type of religious blessing exists among immigrants with Muslim background, but they cannot be used to achieve family reunification,” the researchers say.

“Non-registered marriages in Islamic communities give men and women different possibilities for divorce, which can leave the women in a problematic situation,” the researchers add. “This is recognised by imams we have interviewed. They try to alleviate the problem in various ways, for example through marriage contracts.”

While young people with an ethnic minority background are aware of the 24-year rule, which stipulates the minimum age for family reunification, the SFI report notes that they are less aware of the rule stipulating that both spouses’ aggregate connection to Denmark must be greater than their aggregate connection to another country before a marriage-related family reunification can take place.

The SFI study and report were commissioned and paid for by the Ministry for Refugee, Immigration and Integration Affairs.