A reassessment of family reunification in Europe. The case of Senegalese couples

Abstract

Contemporary policy makers in most European destination countriesexpress a great concern about reunification of migrants’ families. Newrestrictions multiply in almost all countries, on the grounds thatmigrants would take advantage of a too lax system and that it wouldfoster an influx of non-desirable migrants. So far, quantitative evidenceis scarce on migrants’ practices in matter of family reunification.Taking advantage of a unique longitudinal dataset that includesSenegalese individuals surveyed both at origin (in Senegal) and inEurope (France, Italy and Spain), we perform event-history analyses toshow three things. First, couple separation is very often a long lastingsituation. Second, when separated because of international migration,wives and husbands do not only reunify in Europe but quite commonlyin Senegal. And third, those who reunify in Europe are those who arethe most adapted or adaptable to the European culture and economy.