Drawing a Line Between Immigrants and Transmigrants

The changes of international mobility are apparently visible in all immigration countries of the world. Today’s migratory movements challenge classical concepts of labour- or forced migration theories. The pattern of permanent immigration lost its long lasting predominance in describing individual changes of location between countries. One of the most influential competing concepts in migration literature constitutes the idea of transnationalism. In this approach, individuals engage in lives, cultures, and activities in more than one country to the same extent. Although Germany is one of the main immigration countries of Europe, quantitative studies seizing the relevance of this conceptually new phenomenon are scarce. This is mostly due to the lack of data as the appropriate identification of transnationals requires multi-sited, mixed methods approaches with specific, often non-randomized, sampling procedures. But what can be done if there is no such survey at hand? This study tries to answer this question by presenting and discussing strategies of quantitatively operationalizing transnationalism with existing, secondary survey data.

In this respect, the primary objective of this paper is to discuss the strengths and limitations of a strict distinction between transmigrants and immigrants in contrast to a more continuous definition of transnational lifestyles. To this end, the research is arranged in three stages:

In a first step a multi-item measurement is developed in order to distinguish between immigrants and transmigrants in the most unambiguous manner possible. In contrast, the second step aims at accounting for gradual differences in the individuals' ways of living. To this end, a transnationalism index is constructed. Finally, results of bi- and multivariate analyses on the adaption of immigrants and transmigrants in Germany are presented. The paper closes with prospects for the future research of transnationalism.