Using a mixed methods approach, this article examines gendered patterns of
employment and of unemployment benefit uptake among Turkish marriage migrants in
Denmark. The results show that men use co-ethnic networks to access entry
positions. Subsequent eligibility for unemployment benefits enable these men to
search for better jobs. Women enter employment more slowly and tell of such
entry being related to entering the unemployment insurance system, enabling them
to periodically conform to gendered expectations as homemakers. Pakistani
marriage migrants display similar patterns, indicating the centrality of this
institutional arrangement in low-skilled marriage migrants’ active adaptation to
a new society.
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