Milewski, Nadja; Otto, Danny (2017)
In: Hunter, Alistair; Ammann, Eva.Soom (Eds.) (Hrsg.): Final journeys. Migrant end-of-life care and rituals in Europe. London/New York: Routledge: 68–84
Our paper analyses the attitudes of Turkish migrants and their descendants in Germany regarding the importance of a religious funeral ceremony. Previous research provides competing hypotheses on the intergenerational transmission of religiosity in migrant communities, such as, declines in religiosity due to assimilation versus maintenance of religiosity as a means to ethnic identity formation. Quantitative research however has not yet considered funerals. Our study utilises data from the Generations and Gender Survey; our sample comprises roughly 4000 people of Turkish migrant background aged 18–81, most of whom are Muslims. We apply logistic regression methods to attitudes regarding the importance of a religious funeral ceremony. More than 80 per cent of the respondents maintained that a religious funeral ceremony was important. Examination of individual characteristics revealed variation by education, partner's origin, and citizenship. Overall, however, Muslim funeral traditions are sustained across first- and second-generations.