Afro-Caribbeans and Indo-Caribbeans in the Netherlands: Premigration Legacies and Social Mobility

Abstract

The social mobility of immigrants depends not just on the opportunity structure of the receiving society, but also on the past experiences and the sociocultural repertoires that immigrants bring with them on arrival. This becomes clear in a comparison of two ethnic groups that migrated from one Caribbean country to the Netherlands: the Afro-Surinamese and Indo-Surinamese. While both groups left Surinam at the same time and settled into very similar conditions in the Netherlands, their premigration histories differed considerably. These different premigration legacies seem crucial to understanding the current differences in the economic and educational performance of these immigrants and their offspring.