Between two worlds: Work–family balance and bicultural identity among second-generation devout Turkish women in Germany

Abstract

This research examines how bicultural socialisation shapes thework–family balance of second-generation devout Muslim Turkishwomen in Germany. Rather than treating ‘German individualism’and ‘Turkish collectivism’ as fixed cultural blocks, we analyse howparticipants reinterpret, blend and at times reject the normsattached to each. The study draws on two months ofethnographic participant observation in a workplace with a highconcentration of Turkish-origin women in Germany and ten in-depth, semi-structured interviews. Three findings complicateexisting literature. First, ‘family’ here is intergenerational andtransnational, including ageing first-generation parents whoseunfinished settlement work is delegated to their daughters; thisgenerates a form of family interference with work that nuclear-family models do not register. Second, religious devotionfunctions as lived, negotiated practice that shapes which jobs feelmorally liveable. Third, strategies such as part-time and dual part-time work are best read as constrained accommodations ratherthan free preferences. The study extends intersectional andfeminist analyses of work–family conflict to bicultural devoutMuslim women, complicates preference-based and assimilationistaccounts, and informs more granular workplace and welfarepolicy responses.