Migrants and the meaning of parenthood: involuntary childless Turkish migrants in The Netherlands.

BACKGROUND Parenthood motives of infertile Turkish migrant men and women in The Netherlands are compared with those of infertile Dutch men and women. Additionally, the question of whether the importance of various parenthood motives of Turkish migrants are related to the degree of adaptation to the Dutch culture was investigated. METHODS Questionnaires were administered to 58 involuntary childless Turkish migrant men and women and 162 involuntary childless Dutch men and women. RESULTS Individual parenthood motives were most important to both Turkish migrant and Dutch men and women. While social motives were quite important to Turkish migrants, they were unimportant to Dutch men and women. Four aspects of adaptation (norms and values, social integration, skills, absence of feelings of loss related to migration) were negatively related to the importance of social parenthood motives for Turkish migrant women. For Turkish migrant men two aspects of adaptation (traditions and absence of loss) were negatively related to the importance of social parenthood motives. CONCLUSION Turkish migrant and Dutch men and women differ in the importance of social motives. However, Turkish migrants who are more adapted to the Dutch culture give less importance to social parenthood motives.