— I am very happy to have the opportunity to bring this project to life together with good partners. And very grateful to everyone who has contributed with comments and input during the project development, says Solveig Topstad Borgen.
The sociologist is a postdoctoral fellow at the Department of Sociology and Human Geography. The new project grows out of Borgen’s previous research on education among descendants of immigrants.
— For many years I have been researching differences in education among descendants of immigrants, where we see great variation in both ambitions and performance between groups. A natural next step is to investigate what happens in the transition to working life, she says.
This particular transition often coincides with many people starting a family, Borgen explains.
— Entry into working life typically takes place during the period when it becomes relevant for many to start a family. It is this connection that IMMIGENDER tackles.
Family and work
In IMMIGENDER, Borgen will look at what happens in the life phase where education, work and family all need to fall into place.
— We are interested in whether and how starting a family — having children, getting married, choosing a partner — is connected with how things go in working life, she explains.
The project will examine whether this looks different for women and men, between groups with different origins, and from generation to generation. The project is based on Norwegian register data that cover the entire population. This makes it possible to follow people’s life courses closely over time and compare many groups.
IMMIGENDER will run for several years, and the ambition is to provide new knowledge that can be used in research, politics and working life about how family choices and gender equality affect labour market opportunities for descendants of immigrants.
— Norway is a good starting point for this type of research. There are groups of immigrants here from many different countries, and because Norway is among the most gender-equal societies in the world, this provides an interesting backdrop against which to study these groups, says Borgen.
She emphasises that the project does not take for granted either how large the differences are, or what they mean.
— Among other things, it allows us to investigate whether differences in norms and preferences around family and work influence how men and women fare in working life, without assuming in advance how large such differences are, or what they mean.