Original title: Converging Across Generations? Intergenerational Integration into Associational Life
Mia Stenbro Lorenzen, Anders Bastrup Jørgensen, Hans-Peter Y. Qvist · September 2026
When people move to a new country, they often join local clubs and volunteer groups less than native residents do. Researchers wanted to know if this participation gap shrinks in later generations. To find out, they studied non-Western immigrants and native adults in Denmark, looking at group membership, active participation, and volunteering. They found that the gap closes over generations. While first-generation immigrants participate much less than natives, their children and immigrants who arrived as kids participate at rates close to, or the same as, natives. This catch-up happens across various religious and cultural groups, even those from very different backgrounds. A major reason this works is that later generations gain formal citizenship and better economic footing. Getting citizenship status and better socioeconomic attainment helps drive this rise in civic involvement.
Imagine a new student joins a school where everyone already has friend groups and after-school clubs. At first, they eat lunch alone and don't join any teams. But their younger sibling, who arrived as a child, finds it easier to make friends and join the soccer club. By the time the sibling's own kids are in school, they are just as involved as any other student. In this paper, the new student is the first-generation immigrant, the younger sibling is the second generation, and the clubs and teams are the voluntary associations. The study shows that the grandkids catch up almost completely, and the main reasons are getting a good job and, most importantly, becoming a citizen.
For immigrants and their children, joining clubs, volunteering, or becoming members of associations is a sign of belonging in a new country. This study shows that by the second generation, non-Western immigrants in Denmark participate nearly as much as native Danes. That matters because it means integration into community life is possible, and it reveals that getting citizenship and a good job are the biggest drivers of that progress.
The abstract does not specify whether the findings generalize beyond Denmark or beyond non-Western immigrants. It also does not address whether intergenerational progression continues or stalls in later generations, nor does it examine informal social ties or discrimination as potential barriers. The data are cross-sectional, so the observed generational differences may partly reflect cohort effects rather than true change over time.
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Converging Across Generations? Intergenerational Integration into Associational Life — Mia Stenbro Lorenzen, Anders Bastrup Jørgensen, Hans-Peter Y. Qvist — SocArXiv — doi:10.31235/osf.io/shgv5_v1
Abstract licence: CC BY
Explanation generated by Synthesis from the abstract — it is not the original paper. This is a preprint, so it hasn't necessarily been peer reviewed.