Au Pair Religion

Abstract

Abstract As a typical example of mobile religious youth, Filipinos travel to Denmark for a two-year stay as au pairs (aged 18–30). During those two years, the au pairs either opt out of religious practice or intensify their relationship to God in new ways. Whichever they choose, migration brings opportunities to grow as individuals and as active advocates of faith. Using descriptive statistics from the Philippines and Denmark, I compare youth generations to show how Filipino youth inhabit religious traditions in different ways than their Danish peers. The macro perspective on age cohorts reveals that theories of generation and youth should be re-drawn to fit the local religious context. In the second section of the article, I analyse semi-structured interviews with au pairs to make clear how global ways of enacting religion comes to the fore through ideas of choice, authenticity, and ambivalence.