Abstract

Research into interethnic marriages is mainly oriented towards union formation by non-western migrants. European binational marriages are still understudied. However, as is often assumed, in intermarried relationships group boundaries are blurring, European binational couples are particularly interesting because of the contribution they potentially make to European identity formation. In this article we first study the patterns and trends in binational European marriages in Belgium. Second we analyse the diversity in people binationally married and third pinpoint the characteristics of these European couples. We use the marriage registers (2000-2009) as well as the census data for Belgium. Findings show that binational European marriages form a relatively small proportion of marriages contracted in Belgium and patterns remain stable over the past decade. At the same time we find variety in the level at which intermarriage occurs among different origin groups. We finally distinguish six types of binational marriages with different characteristics.

How to Cite:

Koelet, S., De Valk, H. & Willaert, D., (2011) “Huwen in het hart van Europa: Europese binationale huwelijken in België”, Tijdschrift voor Sociologie 32(3-4), 241–265. doi: https://doi.org/10.21825/sociologos.86778